


On The Run

by swiftasadeer (mingowow)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-02-22 06:00:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2497142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mingowow/pseuds/swiftasadeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't really about ending up anywhere. It was just about moving towards something, anything... Taking those steps all by herself. Modern AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I've been working on for a bit now and I'm glad to finally have it out there! It will be a two-shot. Any and all feedback is always appreciated.
> 
> Hopefully you enjoy it! :)

Being on the road is nice. Being the one behind the wheel is nicer, since Beth is always so used to be the passenger. When she was little, she’d press her forehead to the window and count out the white dashes along the pavement. She’d always lose track by thirty or so, having to start again over and over. Whenever roadkill caught her attention, she’d squeeze her eyes shut and count to ten. And by the time she opened them, she was able to start counting once more. One dash, two dash, three dash.

Now she can’t afford to focus her attention on little white dashes and unfortunate squirrels and rabbits. Her eyes stay trained on the long, sometimes winding, strip of road in front of her. Like counting white dashes, the process is infinite. She doesn’t have a destination planned, there’s no point in keeping track of her progress because she doesn’t know where she will end up. It sticks in the back of her mind, that she should probably figure out where she is going, but this isn’t really about ending up anywhere. It’s just about moving towards something, anything... Taking those steps all by herself.

Leaving home was difficult. She barely made it a few miles from the farm when tears bleared her eyes and she was oh so close to turning around. Maggie hadn’t been home when she left and her dad was peacefully asleep just down the hall from her room. She left each of them a note, his on the kitchen table and Maggie’s propped against her pillow, and she knew that they would let Jimmy know as soon as they could. So there was no worry. Well, she knew there would be worry and anger and fear. She knows that. But something convinced her to leave that night and she couldn’t afford to question herself already. So she had packed a small bag and collected up the money she had saved over the past couple of years and she was gone.

Motels are expensive so she’s stopped making pitstops at them every single night, opting for loading herself up with coffee and taking cat naps in her car when she can. She’s spent and when she sees herself in a diner bathroom mirror, nearing 72 hours without a proper night’s sleep, she knows she looks like a wreck. The swipes of purple under her puffy eyes and her matted, slicked back hair make her seem much older than her nineteen years. If it hadn’t been for the winking cowgirl poster plastered on the bathroom wall stating ‘Don’t Mess With Texas!’, she wouldn’t have even been sure of where she was. That was just how life had been the past few weeks.

She washes her face the best she can in the rinky-dink sink, swiping on chapstick and attempting to tame her hair into a low ponytail. It’s not much, but it’s enough to keep the waitress from eyeing her strangely when she orders a coffee and asks for a refill only a few minutes later. It’s just her in the diner, along with a man a few stools down. His hair is shaggy and messy and it looks like he hasn’t properly showered in a few days either, so she feels less self-conscious. She realizes the people here are probably used to folks coming in all dingy and sleep-deprived; truckers and road trippers and drifters and bikers. Runaways. That’s the category Beth supposes she falls into, the runaways. 

On her third cup, she looks back over at the man down the counter, noting the faded angel wings stitched onto the back of his vest. The corners of her lips quirk up, mentally taping the label ‘biker’ to him. 

“There a motel near by?” he asks the waitress behind the counter. She rattles off a set of directions and he leaves without another word. Beth was planning on spending another night in her car but the thought of a hot shower and a pillow was too tempting to pass up. So with a soft-spoken ‘thank you’ and a more than generous tip, she recites the directions to the motel in her head.

It’s past one in the morning once she’s out of the shower and while the room smells a bit like stale air and the bedspread is a little itchy, she doesn’t know why she can’t will herself to sleep. The room is without a TV which is fine because she doesn’t even know what she would find to watch anyway, but the silence is killing her. Getting away was supposed to be good for her, that’s what she had promised herself, but it was nights like this where the loneliness really sunk in and ate at her insides. 

She takes a second shower, hoping the warmth of the water will lull her body into sleep mode and when it doesn’t work, she figures getting out of the room is her best bet. 

Hair still damp, she takes a drive down the road, careful to not go too far so that she doesn’t get lost. There’s a liquor store about a half mile down and what the hell, she hasn’t let herself slip to that place yet. The cashier doesn’t ask for an ID when she pays for a bottle of whiskey, which she finds odd, but takes it as a sign that this is what she should be doing.

The stuff burns her throat and nostrils and eyes but she takes dainty sips that slowly turn into gulps in the driver’s seat of her car, flickering light of the motel sign illuminating the dash a soft baby blue. The booze makes her antsy so she stumbles on up and wow, climbing the stairs to the second level of rooms is like climbing Mount Everest, but she manages to do it with one had clutching the sloshing bottle and the other wrapped firmly around the railing. She tries to remember her room number, 221 or 212, something with 2s, 222, and she imagines herself as a little girl in a tutu made of screen from the back porch door of her family’s farm. She giggles and leans agains the metal railing, sliding down to sit on the ground.

‘Y’okay?” The voice startles her and the bottle slips from her hand, clattering on the metal floor of the walkaway. The cap is halfway screwed on, so nothing leaks out, much to her relief. Once she sets the bottle back up, she turns her eyes to the man towering above her. His hair hangs in his face so she can’t make out much besides the gruff of facial hair and two squinted eyes. His clothes are a bit rumpled and he awkwardly shifts back and forth on his feet, like he’s afraid she’s gonna pop up and knock him out. She giggles lightly at the thought.

“Yeah, I’m just great.” He bites down on his lip, like he wants to saying something, but continues on walking past her. She watches him with a slow roll and loll of her head and he’s nearly rounding the corner when she recognizes the angel wings on his back. “Hey... hey!” she calls out, voice crackling a bit as she moves to her knees and pulls herself up to her feet, not that gracefully. “Did ya want a drink?” 

He stops at the question, turning halfway and staring back at her. She holds the bottle up and rattles it about, brown liquid sloshing inside. Beth knows it’s probably not the smartest idea, asking some random guy with a surly expression and pretty unwelcoming body language to drink with her, but she’s desperate for company. And he was the first to speak to her anyway.

If she were sober, she’d probably be surprised if he accepted her offer, but in her current state, she’s confident. She pushes the bottle into his hand once he’s in arm’s reach and watches as he takes a nice, long swig. The muscles in his arms tense and flex and she can feel the heat spreading up the side of her neck, back behind her ears. She clears her throat when he hands the bottle back but she doesn’t drink.

“Saw you at the diner.” He bobs his head once, leaning back against the light pink stucco wall. “Heard about the motel.”

“Y’follow me?” he questions, reaching out again for the bottle she has protectively tucked under her arm. She holds it back out to him and it almost slips out of her grasp, but his hand is on hers before it can fall.

“No... Well, I guess, yeah. But not ‘cause of you. Just needed a place to stay. I’m not dumb enough to follow some biker guy around.” At that, he cracks a small grin and it hits her that beneath the greasy hair and grimy clothes, he is pretty darn attractive.

“What makes you think I’m a biker?”

“I’unno. The leather vest, your... demeanor. You just look like one. Ya aren’t?” He pushes himself off the wall as he takes another drink and she’s too inebriated to move out of the way when she thinks he’s going to invade her space. But instead he just leans over the rail next to her and nods down at the parking lot. Tilting her head, she follows his gaze to a motorcycle parked just down below. “I knew it!” His eyes twinkle a bit, but maybe it was just the crappy exterior lights playing tricks on her. 

“What’s a girl like you doin’ out here by yourself?” She scoffs a bit at his wording, her mind drifting back to home and her family and Jimmy and everything else that she had considered her life. Sweet little Bethy.

“Wanted to get away, so that I wasn’t just ‘a girl like me’,” she retorts. Her stomach starts to twist and she’s not sure if it’s the whiskey or the fact that she’s finally putting into words everything she had been feeling over the past few weeks. The stranger doesn’t look at her but she stares at him and she feels like she can read his face. She expects to be judged, for people to roll their eyes at her. She had things so good, she knows that, but that wasn’t everything. And maybe this biker guy didn’t know anything about her life, but she still felt the need to defend herself.

“Mm.” He sets the bottle down on the ground and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a pack of smokes, lighting one up and taking a long drag.

“I don’t expect you to feel bad for me, I don’t expect anyone to feel bad for me. I don’t feel bad for myself. That’s not what this is all about.” 

The man quirks an eyebrow at her but doesn’t offer a reply, just a drag from his cigarette. He holds it out to her in offering and while out of instinct, she starts shaking her head, she stops herself and reaches out for it, hesitantly. The inhale hits her hard and she coughs, expectedly, but he unexpectedly doesn’t laugh or smile at her sputtering. He’s just all intense eyes and it’s as if he’s trying to burn holes right through her with them.

“I... it’s like everyone thinks they know everything about me. I’ve been stuffed into one box my entire life, there’s not a lot expected of me. I’m the baby of my family, everybody expects me to just be so... good. God, this is sounding really stupid, I guess it is stupid.” Beth has to laugh at herself, eyes suddenly brimming with tears that she wills herself to hold back. The man plucks the quickly burning cigarette from her fingers and taps off the ashes, a swirl of oranges slowly falling through the grated balcony floor. Her stomach seems to mimic their motion.

“Naw, I get it.”

“ _You_ get it?” she asks incredulously, before realizing how rude it may have sounded. He picks up on the tone too by the expression etched onto his face, but simply takes one last pull before stubbing the cigarette out and carefully tucking it back into the pack. He shrugs.

“I’m the baby, too. ‘cept everyone expected me to be bad. I was bad. Am still, I guess.” 

She shuffles her feet a bit, knocking her foot into the whiskey bottle. Bending over, she slowly unscrews the cap and takes another sip. It doesn’t really burn much this time. “That really something you wanna say when you’re alone with a random girl at some seedy motel, sharing a cigarette?”

“Wasn’t exactly sharin’, considerin’ you couldn’t handle it. You’ve been the one sharin’ all kinds of stuff.” Beth cracks a grin at that and it feels almost foreign, so much so that she grows self-conscious of her teeth and lips, biting back the smile and turning her gaze down. Her eyes travel to a man beneath them, watching through the iron grates as he fills up an ice bucket, scoop by scoop. She shivers, rolling her neck off to the side. A tap to her shoulder causes her to look up, the biker with his hand outstretched, holding out his angel wing vest to her. 

Normally, Beth would’ve politely refused, but wasn’t her journey all about doing something new, something different?

With a half smile, she slides the vest on, the heavy stench of smoke and leather and sweat filling her nostrils. It doesn’t warm her all that much but there’s something comforting about it. She lets her eyes fall shut for just a moment.

And when she opens them, she’s curled up on her side, the vest still pulled snug around her body. She recognizes the motel decor but it’s not her room, the furniture is mirrored. Her heart thuds loudly in her chest and she sits up, far too quickly, causing the throb in her head to hit her like a ton of bricks. There’s a taste in her mouth that makes her stomach turn; she manages to stand with wobbly legs, her limbs somehow feeling like Jell-O yet weighed down by rocks. 

She remembers last night, at least most of it. She remembers the biker (but not his name; if she ever even learned his name) and the whiskey and if she wasn’t feeling so awful, she’d probably feel beyond embarrassed, but there is only so much she can shoulder in the moment. Her hand makes an awful cup as she splashes water from the bathroom sink on her face and into her mouth, remedying her sandpaper tongue. She hears the motel door open and she freezes.

Looking up in the mirror, she remembers the vest and hastily shrugs it off. She wishes she could remember every detail of last night, all the words she let slip out of her lips and every stupid action she took. She doesn’t believe anything happened, mainly because she knows the awkward feeling from sleeping in her bra and jeans and the crumpled appearance of her clothing confirms that.

Hesitantly, she flips off the bathroom light and steps back into the main room. He’s there, awkwardly standing near the doorway, hands in his pockets. Beth waits for him to speak, to ask her to leave or say good morning or anything, but he doesn’t. His eyes are fixed on her, briefly drifting to the faded green carpet, but always wandering back to her gaze. The man makes a weird sound in the back of his throat and she realizes she’s wringing his vest in her hands.

Blushing furiously, she makes the first move, stepping forward and holding out the vest like a used tissue. He takes it from her and subconsciously wrings the leather a bit, mimicking her. She smiles to herself, pushing her hair back off her face.

“Um, I don’t really... remember everything from last night.” The biker stills his hands and stares straight at her. She can’t read his expression. “But thanks for letting me stay here.”

“Y’couldn’t find your key. Didn’t know what room you were in.” If her face could get any hotter, it does.

“Oh. Must’ve left it in my car or something. Look, I’m so sorry, I’m super embarrassed.” His face doesn’t break and she doesn’t know what to make of the situation. She’s about to walk right past him, hop in her car, and take off again to wherever, but before she can take a step, he speaks up, shrugging back on his vest.

“Ya hungry?”

\---

“Not that I really have anything to be ashamed of at this point, but I can’t seem to remember your name.” 

There was a gas station just past the liquor store and Beth was never so glad to walk anywhere in her life. The fresh air was quite rejuvenating and the short trip loosened up her muscles and bones. She still had her ID and some cash tucked in her back pocket, so she figured the least she could do was buy the guy a cup of old coffee and split a pack of powdered donuts with him. Even if she didn’t know his name.

“Daryl.” He wasn’t making eye contact again, instead just sloshing and swirling his coffee around his cup. She realizes he hadn’t even taken a taste.

“Well, thanks again, Daryl. I’m Beth.” There’s a ghost of a grin she thinks she sees on his mouth but he covers it by sucking white powder off his fingertips. “I’m guessing you remembered, unlike me.”

“Naw. Never told me your name.”

“You let a drunk nameless girl crash in your room.” She almost adds onto that, but there shouldn’t be a need to commend someone for being a decent person, even if she’s relieved to find that he may actually be one. It’s reassuring. 

Daryl shrugs and she wants to prod because damn, he doesn’t seem to reveal much. But she leaves it be, sipping from her own styrofoam cup and burning the tip of her tongue. She pulls back jarringly, hair falling into her eyes and she can smell leather and sweat and something else. The hot shower at the motel sounds like heaven about now.

“Your name didn’t matter, couldn’t just let you sleep outside like that by yourself.” Beth smiles at him, a real genuine one this time and when he doesn’t reciprocate, she holds up the donut package to him and offers him the last one. He inhales it and she bites back a laugh as a puff of sugary powder dusts the black of his vest.

She cups her coffee in both hands as they make their way back to the motel and as much as she wants to shower and get back on the road, the thought of parting ways is a little bit sad. Daryl quietly waits as she digs through her car to find her purse and room key (212 it was) and she ignores the look a young couple throws their way when he walks her to her door. She unlocks it and stalls in the doorframe, turning the handle over and over.

“Where are you headin’ after this?” she inquires, knowing full well that they’re strangers and he has no reason to tell her, but she’s curious. And what’s the worst that could come from asking? No answer? ‘Nowhere’? ‘Mind your own damn business’? Daryl shrugs.

“Don’t know. Anywhere.”

“Me too.” 

There aren’t any goodbyes but she thanks him once more and he shrugs again; she finds the physical response suits him pretty well. Beth takes her long, hot shower and smells her generically clean hair, repacking her dirty clothes in the only small bag she has with her. The room is much too quiet so she doesn’t stay long; she’s back in her car and ready to head off when the low fuel light on her dashboard angrily flares up at her.

She stops at the gas station once more and the attendant doesn’t regard her in any way that reveals he remembers her from just a few hours earlier. The cash she had hit the road with is beginning to run sparse and there’s a moment of terror that takes her over as the rumble of a motorcycle fills her ears. When she peeks over at the noise, it’s Daryl, and somehow she knew it was him before she even looked. He doesn’t seem to notice her at first and she doesn’t want to seem weird or creepy or say something dumb like, ‘hey, fancy meeting you here’, so she keeps her eyes trained on counting the same three bills in her hands over and over.

Finally she looks up to go pay and he’s staring at her, openly. She can’t read his expression, what she can see of it through his shaggy hair, but that is nothing new. Beth swallows the urge to go over to him and instead makes her way inside, handing over two bills to the attendant. Thoughtlessly, she grabs a pack of gum too and presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth, tender from the hot coffee this morning.

When she steps back outside, Daryl’s missing but his bike remains. It’s not like she means to, but she wanders over to the thing anyway and admires it from a few feet away. It’s clean and pristine, quite the contrast to Daryl himself, she muses. The thought of riding it though, wind whipping against her face and rumble of the engine beneath her, it must be like flying.

“Y’ever ridden one?” His voice jolts her and she automatically takes a few steps back from the motorcycle, clutching the pack of gum in her hands. He’s not smiling but there’s a certain glint in his eye that tugs at the corners of her lips.

“No, never.” Daryl pulls out a cigarette and lights it, and she’s about to advise him not to while they’re standing so close to the gas pumps, but he sidles onto the bike and nods his head off to the side. Beth stands there awkwardly for a long moment. Is she supposed to get on? She doesn’t know him, she doesn’t know where he’d take her. He seems to sense her hesitance, shrugging and talking around his cigarette.

“Just a quick ride.” 

Glancing over her shoulder, she doesn’t know what she’s hoping to see. The attendant doesn’t even notice them, he never did, and that’s okay, it’s probably for the best. Excitement bubbles in the pit of her stomach as she lets herself give in, gently laying her hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she hops on. Her arms go to snake around his midsection and it all seems very intimate, enough to make her face heat up, and she’s thankful he can’t really see her right now. 

“Hold on.”

And she does. And it’s wondrous. Her arms squeeze tight around him and her cheek presses against the sticky leather of his vest. She laughs but the sound is drowned out and her eyes drift to the stretch of road below them, counting white dashes. One dash, two dash, three dash. 

The ride is much too short and she deflates like a balloon when the gas station comes into view. She’s tempted to tell him to keep going, don’t stop, but her better judgement wins out. He pulls up beside her car and the sight of it makes her stomach sink; her arms slowly unravel from him and she slides on off, a little wobbly legged like a newborn calf. The gum pack she’s holding is smushed and soft from her tight grip. 

There’s another awkward stare exchanged between the two and Beth knows she should go. She knows it’s probably just loneliness eating away at her and that’s why she doesn’t want to leave the gas station or Daryl or Somewhere, Texas. His companionship was unexpected but exhilarating. But she knows the truth of the matter, that he’s a stranger and her being out on the road was about more than some mysterious yet strangely kind man on a motorcycle. Beth thinks of what Maggie’s face would look like when she tells her this story and she almost laughs, but it’s cut off by an overwhelming poignancy, the thought of her sister.

“Stay safe,” is all she tells him before climbing into her car and pulling out onto the empty road. Her eyes linger on the rearview mirror until Daryl is but a speck, the gas station is just a smudge. 

Beth thinks on her sister for a long time as the scenery blurs alongside her. Her car takes her east and she wishes her hair still smelled like leather and sweat.


	2. Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I lied: this is going to be longer than 2 parts. I really meant to keep it at that but I got caught up in finishing up this one and all your guys' feedback has been amazing. I'm so grateful and flattered that you guys like this and I really, truly appreciate all the comments and kudos.
> 
> I'm not gonna set a limit on it yet, we'll see how long this thing goes. :)
> 
> As always, comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

New Orleans is a strange fit on Beth, but there are elements she finds herself loving. The market sucks her in and she spends hours there, smelling flowers and eyeballing fresh produce, rummaging through the knick knacks that she’s oh so tempted to buy, but they really serve no purpose and she has little to no money to her name anyway. She loses herself in the market, in the people, doing her best to push aside the realization that she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do.

There’s a girl working in the food court that Beth idly chats with and it’s nice, having a real interaction with someone that isn’t just pleasantries or necessity. They casually exchange stories, how Beth’s from Georgia and she’s from Florida, how Beth loves her hair and she loves Beth’s boots. Beth misses having a friend so when the girl invites her out later that night, she jumps on the opportunity. The girl’s smile seems genuine when she asks to exchange numbers, even though Beth abandoned her cell phone back in Georgia. There’s something trustworthy that glimmers in her eyes. Her name is Sasha.

Beth hasn’t drunk since Texas, since the motel and Daryl the biker, those memories that she wonders if maybe they were figments of her imagination. Less than a week has passed since then but it seems like a lifetime ago. She hates how much she thinks about him, she feels a little bit foolish whenever she catches her mind drifting and remembering his too long hair and countless shrugs. Maybe alcohol’s the answer to forgetting about Texas for the night.

Sasha introduces her to a few friends and they’re all nice enough; she chimes in on conversations but the others already mesh so well and bring up inside things, so she mostly settles for sipping her whiskey and Coke. She has to make it last, unless she plans on slipping out before her tab is closed.

She’s playing with the long strap of her purse, glancing at the group she’s with as they talk amongst themselves, when a man she doesn’t recognize pulls up a chair beside her. The bar is fairly loud and she doesn’t hear the greeting he gives her at first, but she sees his lips move. He’s handsome, really handsome, and Beth subconsciously scans the area around her, wondering why he’s taken a seat at her side.

“I’m Gareth,” he tells her, just loud enough that she can hear, holding out his hand. She shakes it gingerly and notes how soft and cool his skin is. 

“Beth.” 

They chat, well, he mostly chats. She listens. And she notices little things about him that make up his attractiveness: his contagious smile, the scruff lining his face, his effortless hair. The way he speaks captivates her too, he’s eloquent and charisma oozes from him slow and sweet. It’s intoxicating. Or maybe that’s the second round of whiskey he’s bought her.

Time passes and Sasha’s hand finds its way to Beth’s shoulder. She feels good, she feels relaxed, and the way that Gareth looks at her makes her want to giggle incessantly, which she has been doing a lot of.

“We’re heading out. Are you...?” Sasha trails off, eyes flickering from Beth to Gareth and back again. She wants to stay, she does. She likes how this guy makes her feel, the way all of his attention is focused on her, and gosh, she can’t get over how handsome he is. But she’s feeling the whiskey pretty well and she remembers the last time she drank. Embarrassment hits her and she shakes her head, hastily standing.

“I’m comin’. It was nice... meetin’ you.” A strange look passes over Gareth’s face as Beth holds onto Sasha’s arm to gain her footing. He starts to protest but Sasha’s already helping her weed through the crowd, causing his voice to fade away.

They’re nearly at the door when she feels someone grab her elbow tight and her reaction is slow. It’s Gareth and he’s grinning at her, which causes her to smile back, lopsided.

“You forgot this,” he explains, holding up her purse. Beth’s face heats up and she mumbles her thanks when the guy freaking winks at her. Sasha is chuckling by the time they get out the door and Beth’s so thankful for her company in this moment so she doesn’t have to die of embarrassment alone.

They walk for a short while and it really is a perfect night. There’s a light breeze and faint trickles of music funnel out into the street as they walk past different bar fronts. Heavy clouds curtain the moon and it may be creepy if she didn’t in that moment find it beautiful. Beth feels like she’s in a movie, like she’s walking on air. New Orleans is just the best, she muses. She has a new friend and flirted all night with a good-looking guy. Sasha’s friends stroll just a few feet ahead of them and Beth thinks maybe they’ll become her friends too. The whiskey’s made her skin feel so warm and wonderful and she’s sky-high until Sasha asks where she’s staying.

“I’ll walk ya home so you don’t have to pay for a cab.” The sentiment is touching but Beth thinks of her deficient funds and her old car with a lumpy backseat that makes for a crappy bed. Her mood deflates rapidly and suddenly the warmth of her skin feels clammy and the whiskey has her wanting to mope. But she doesn’t let her emotions win, she swallows them down and offers Sasha a small, forced smile.

“That’s okay, I’ll be okay.”

“Beth, you really shouldn’t walk home alone at this time...”

“I’ll flag down a cab,” she cuts Sasha off, letting her arm slip from the other woman’s. Sasha frowns at her but Beth nudges her forward towards her friends. “I’ll be fine, I promise.” 

Sasha gives in but only after Beth promises to call her once she can find a phone to use. “You have got to get yourself a phone, girl.”

Beth takes small, slow steps, waiting for the group to disappear as they round a corner a block or so up. Beth’s not too clear on her location or which way she should go. She knows she should stop and ask someone for directions on how to get back to the lot where her car is parked, but she doesn’t.

The night seems lousy now, wind blowing her hair into her eyes so her shoe catches on the uneven sidewalk. She stumbles and feels so self-conscious, though the various people passing by don’t seem to pay her any mind. Thankfully, she recognizes the intricate ironwork along the balcony of one building and with a bit of luck, she finds her way back to the lot. There’s a man playing a saxophone just outside the entrance and she wishes she had something to give him, but all she can offer is a smile. His beard reminds him of her father and his playing has her missing making music.

It takes her no time to spot her car, only a few other vehicles scattered around. It’s eerie and strange, how open the lot is, and the wind seems to pick up so her feet follow suit. She’s already digging in her purse for her keys when her heart leaps into her throat. Her wallet’s missing.

“Son of a bitch,” she all but shouts, digging furiously, as if maybe it’s somehow hiding in the small space. Forgetting about her keys, she tries to mentally retrace her steps. Where she walked, what she did with her purse, could it have fallen out somehow? Suddenly she remembers Gareth and her stomach twists at the thought of his charming smile. “Son of a bitch,” she repeats, though it’s much softer the second time.

Her emotions bubble over and she whips her purse against her car, once, twice. She wants to scream and curse and she can still hear the saxophone, she wants to talk to her dad. But she doesn’t have her phone and she doesn’t have her ID, she doesn’t even have a quarter to make a call. She has nothing.

The music gets drowned out by two male voices and they build until she can’t even hear her own heavy breathing. She leans against her car, resting her temple against the cool metal. The men are arguing and cursing and she’s not actively paying attention to them, but she processes bits and piece.

“It’s a fuckin’ dumb idea. I ain’t goin’ to jail.”

“Ain’t nobody goin’ to jail, stop gettin’ your panties all in a bunch.” She hears them scoff, a slight tussle, and wonders if she should slip in her car before they break out into a full on fight. 

Resisting the urge to look their way as they continue to spit at one another, she digs out her keys and unlocks the door. The rip of clothing catches her attention though and she has to steal a glance. One of the men is on his back on the ground, the other towering over him with a piece of what appears to be the other’s shirt in his hand.

“Lemme know you get some nuts, Darleena,” the standing man barks, tossing down the piece of cloth before he stomps over to a truck. Beth watches as he climbs in and peels out. There’s a motorcycle parked beside it and she lets herself think of Texas just for a moment.

There’s a groan as the man on the ground moves to sit up, his back to her. The wings on his vest are like a beacon of light and no, it can’t be. It’s just a huge coincidence because how the hell could it be him? She has to be dreaming. So she laughs a laugh that starts out low and throaty and grows into something strong, causing her to hiccup. Her eyes flutter shut for just a moment and when they open, they focus in on the man staring straight at her. It really is him. The realization dawns on his face, eyes widening before his eyebrows furrow together. Daryl remembers her too.

“Are you okay?” she asks him once her laughter dies down and she finds her voice. One sleeve of his shirt is missing and her eyes drift to the muscles there. Her face heats up.

“Yeah. He’s just a dick.” She wants to ask the obvious questions, what is he doing here, how did this happen, did he follow her? They’re all silly questions, she decides, but she’s not ready for their interaction to end. “Y’okay?” Him asking in return causes a strange tightness to spread in her chest.

“No.” Beth means to leave it that but she wants to talk to someone and he’s here now, just like he was there before. So he might listen, right? “I’m tired of sleeping in my car. I have no money. And I’m pretty sure some guy stole my wallet tonight.” Daryl stares at her with the unreadable expression she remembers so well, just as a few spits of rain hit her shoulders and face. 

“Then that guy’s a dick too,” Daryl states, as if that wasn’t already obvious. So she has to smile and it’s nice how the emotions that were weighing her down just a minute ago seem to lighten. The droplets of rain pellet down harder and she smooths back the strands of her hair wildly whipping about her face. After glancing down at her keys, she tilts her head at him.

“Did you want to sit with me? Till the rain let’s up?” she offers, and how she hopes he says yes because she wants his company. It’s weird and it’s probably extremely stupid, but she can’t deny how badly she wants to be around him at this very moment. She didn’t understand why her mind idly wandered back to him so often but him being here now, of all places, had to mean something, didn’t it?

She’s worried his lack of response is a no, but finally he shrugs and she has to bite down on her lip. Quickly, she opens the driver’s side door and slides in, just as the sky opens up and unleashes a relentless downpour.

Her hair is tangled and wet and she does her best to comb her fingers through it as Daryl climbs inside. She sneaks a look at him and wishes she could smell the leather of his vest from where she’s sitting. The self-admission makes her roll her eyes at herself.

There’s silence for quite a while, just the rhythmic pummeling of rain against the roof. They awkwardly brush arms and he mumbles an apology just as she does. She feels like the whiskey’s all but worn off, but that might just be the sudden surge of adrenaline that’s hit her; she feels quite brave and bold.

“It’s weird. That we ran into each other again,” she finally states, even though she feels a bit ridiculous doing so. Daryl’s chewing on his thumb but he nods a little. “I didn’t think I was gonna see you again. But... I’m glad I got to.” 

He looks over at her then and for once, his expression seems very open. His hair is still a bit dirty and she notices then that his eyes are a very pretty blue. “Yeah, me too.” Her stomach flips over.

Maybe it’s the whiskey or maybe it’s the insatiable desire to smell him again, to inhale the leather and smoke and sweat, or maybe it’s just pure stupidity, but Beth doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that she misses her family or that she wishes she had told Daryl to keep going that day when he took her for a ride. She forgets about feeling lonely and smooth talking boys in bars and she leans towards him, hands sliding over to hold onto any part of him that she can and she kisses Daryl. She kisses him hard and needy because for whatever reason, he feels right. And it has to be right, he’s here again. It’s a second chance.

He freezes for a moment but once her arms try to loop around his neck and she’s leaning too far over the middle console, he kisses back. It’s messy and a bit awkward but Beth doesn’t care. It’s lights a fire in her and god, she can finally smell him now. Her hips turn more to the side for better access and before she knows it, he’s got one hand curled around the back of her thighs and the other on her side, clumsily tugging her over to his seat. Her foot gets caught around the gear stick and she giggles into his mouth.

It’s a tight fit but she settles in his lap just as their kiss breaks. She’s breathing heavy and he’s panting too and all she wants then is to consume him. 

It strikes her that she doesn’t even know his last name or where he’s from or really, the first thing about him. But she reasons with herself that she knows how she feels when he’s around, how he took care of a girl he didn’t know, that he could have easily ignored. A girl that he remembered just as she hadn’t forgotten about him.

And with that thought, she has to kiss him again, deeper and closer this time around, pressing into him as close as she can. She can _feel_ him and she’s pretty sure this is the most she’s ever felt alive. Her hands ghost down his shoulders, against his sides and she wants to feel the warmth of his skin against her palms. But the moment her fingertips slip under the hem of his shirt, Daryl tenses. 

“Wait,” he breathes, so quietly that she almost mistakes it for a sigh. Her hands pull away and he relaxes instantly back into his seat. There’s an awkward beat and she shifts in his lap a little, causing both of them to blush. 

“Sorry,” Beth murmurs, not knowing what to do with her hands. He shakes his head at her so she faintly glides her fingers along the exposed arm of his ripped sleeve. “You’re gonna need a new shirt.”

“You’re gonna need some place else to stay.”

Beth smirks and lets out a small but happy laugh when he mimics her actions and ghosts his fingers along the back of her arm. She shivers but leans into the touch, his arms curling around the small of her back. 

Daryl tells her that he and the guy he was tussling with, Merle, are staying at a motel nearby. She doesn’t want to intrude and originally she protests, but he doesn’t let it go.

“I have no way of repaying you.” Beth is still in his lap though she’s considering sliding back to her own seat. Her initial courage has simmered and she feels a bit self-conscious. He seems oddly content though, arms loosely wound around her midsection. 

“Got two beds and Merle stormed off like the ass he is. Probably won’t be back till morning.” 

The rain’s let up a little bit by the time they climb out of the car, Daryl awkwardly holding her hips to steady her, windows half steamed and both of their faces tickled pink. It’s still spitting and he points the way they need to head; Beth grabs onto his forearm and breaks into a jog, tugging him along with her. She skips over puddles like a game of hopscotch, missing one just barely and splashing water up onto her legs. A sound escapes her lips and she can see him smirk from the corner of her eye.

The motel is outdated and smells pretty bizarre, but it’s dry and she knows there is a bed waiting for her. They pass a sign depicting the rates and she wonders how she’s gonna scrape together any money now that she really had nothing left to her name. 

Daryl’s room is dimly lit but there’s two beds like he had said and no matter how scratchy the bedspread is or if the pillows smell musty, she knows it’ll be the most comfortable place she’s laid in some time. 

“Y’can shower, if ya like,” he states, shrugging off his vest before running his hand back through his wet hair. He shakes it out and Beth chews on her lip, imagining he’s like a stray dog. Her feet are cold from the wetness of her socks and jeans; there’s no way she could turn down a hot shower.

“Okay, thanks.” She steps into the bathroom and waits for the light to flicker on. How does she keep ending up in motel rooms with him? It’s funny yet odd, but there’s a rush that travels through her as she kicks off her boots and peels off her clothing, knowing he’s just on the other side of the wall. Realizing she had left her bag of (mostly dirty) clothes in the car, she hangs up her jeans on a rack in hopes they’ll dry out some by the time she’s toweling off.

While she showers, her eyes keep drifting to the sliver of an opening between the shower curtain and the wall. She can just see the edge of the door frame and she knows he’s not going to just waltz right in there, but she imagines the scenario anyway. Daryl seems too good and too kind, as rough around the edges as he may be. But she still keeps checking it, because just maybe, and there’s a second of disappointment when she turns off the water and wrings out her hair. 

Her clothes are still damp but she redresses anyway; it’s not like she can be in the same room as him with only a towel wrapped around herself, though it’s an... interesting thought. She exits the bathroom, quickly braiding her hair and he’s sitting perched on the bed nearest the door, elbows resting on his knees. Her appearance causes him to straighten and she smiles, shuffling along the carpet as best as her saturated jeans will let her.

“Nothin’s worse than wet denim,” she jokes, taking a seat on the opposite bed as she ties off her braid. Giving him a once over, she can tell he’s drenched too and it can’t be comfortable.

“I might have somethin’ else you can wear,” Daryl offers her. His consideration causes a flutter in her stomach but she shakes her head a little.

“Naw, I’ll be okay. You should go shower, you’re lookin’ downright miserable.” His eyes fall to his shoes but she thinks she spots a hint of a smile on his lips as he stands. “Um, do you have a phone I can borrow?” He gives her a short inquisitive look but nods, pulling out a basic cell phone from his back pocket. Tucked in her purse, she finds Sasha’s number; he stands and watches as Beth sends her a quick text letting her new friend know she was alright. After she sets the phone down on the bedside table, he finally steps into the bathroom.

Beth sits still until she hears the water start to run. It’s not her place to snoop, especially considering how much he has done to help her out and he hardly even knows her. But she’s curious, there’s something enigmatic about him that has her wanting to know more.

There’s two duffel bags along the wall, one put together and zipped shut, the other opened and disorganized by the looks of it. She knows she probably doesn’t have long, all the guys she’s known have always taken pretty quick showers, so without over-thinking it, she gets on her knees and carefully starts combing through the messier bag. It will be easier for her to put back together before he emerges again.

The bag reeks; it smells like old socks and something rotting, so bad that she lets out a small cough before forcing herself to breathe through her mouth. She reasons she can’t say much, her bag and clothes probably stink like something else too. There’s a pair of worn dark brown pants, a few shirts, some rolled up socks (that she decides not to touch). At the bottom of the bag, she feels something plastic and yanks it up.

It’s a large sealed bag full of different prescription bottles and baggies of pills. They’re all various sizes, different colors, there’s at least a dozen of them. Beth flips the bag over in her hands, shaking it slightly to see if she can recognize any markings on any of the pills. There’s an orange bottle labeled Codeine in black marker and she remembers that name from when Maggie had her wisdom teeth removed. Unzipping it, Beth slips her hand inside and pulls a few of the smaller baggies out. Some brightly colored round tablets catch her attention but before she can look any closer, she hears the creak of the shower faucet turn and the water stop.

Her heart’s suddenly beating a mile a minute as she quickly looks over more of the bottles. It doesn’t sit right with her, even if she can’t identify the majority of them. She shoves the bag of pills down to the bottom of the duffel, piling on shirts and hastily burying it under dirty socks. She all but bellyflops onto her bed as the bathroom door groans and Daryl appears, fresh-faced but still in his same old clothes.

Beth cradles her chin in the palm of her hand, shooting a look at him and praying her face gives nothing away. His eyes linger on her for a moment before he squats down in front of the neat, unzipped duffel. She can hear her heartbeat in her ears, somehow a bit relieved.

“So... Merle, he a friend of yours?” she inquires, figuring it’s an innocent enough question. Daryl snorts and she presses her mouth against her arm to keep from smiling at the sound.

“Wouldn’t hang around Merle if I didn’t have to. He’s my brother.” Daryl stands, a roll of clothing tucked under his arm before he disappears again into the bathroom. Beth’s mind drifts to Maggie, all bleary-eyed and high on painkillers, her jaw swollen so bad that Beth poked fun and said she looked like a chipmunk. Their dad let them eat ice cream for dinner that night.

She has quite a few secrets on her sister, things Maggie made her swear she’d never tell their father or anyone else. That’s partly what having a sibling is all about, she supposes, protecting one another and being a confidant, no matter what. Beth doesn’t want to feel guilty for leaving her sister, not right now, so she focuses her thoughts back to Daryl and his brother and that bag of pills. 

The duffel bag must be Merle’s, she deduces. Does Daryl know about the pills? Do they sell them? Do they _take_ them? 

Daryl steps out in clean clothes, almost meticulously folding his worn ones and packing them away in his neat bag. 

She knows she should feel a little uneasy about where she’s at; as much as she finds herself drawn to him and restraining herself from stomping right over to him and pressing their lips together again, he’s still a stranger. He’s a complete stranger and he told her before all the way back in Texas that he was bad, but he had yet to show that. To her so far, he was nothing but good and kind, a bit awkward, but his actions and words seemed admirable enough. Maybe he was bad, maybe he and his brother were wanted felons or gang members or worse. But Beth didn’t want to be alone and she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to open him up and find out for herself if he was really as awful as he claimed to be.

Maybe he is on the road too, trying to find something out about himself just like she is, trying to veer off the path set in front of him.

He’s sitting on the edge of his bed and she crawls her way to the end of hers, padding softly along the carpet until she’s right in front of him. His eyes appear scared, like that of a skittish animal, and he flinches a bit when she brings her hand to his damp hair and combs her fingers through it. 

Craning her head down, she can’t identify his scent, but she whispers close enough to see his hair dance under her breath. He sharply inhales.

“Good night.”

There’s no reply from Daryl as she pulls down the covers to her bed and slips in, curling up on her side, facing the window and back to him. She hears some jingling and the flip open and shut of his cell phone before the light is flicked off.

Beth sleeps long and deep, dreaming of rainstorms and chipmunks.


	3. Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I am overwhelmed in the best way with the response this story has gotten. Your guys' encouragement and kind words have really meant so much to me. Every kudos and comment is appreciated. Thank you so much for reading and as always, I hope you enjoy it!

Daryl is there when she wakes this time.

Beth rouses slowly, groggy and a bit achy. Her jeans are dry and the bottoms are rigid as she bends her knees just a little. It reminds her of when her mother would hang up clothes on the line outside, and she and Maggie would put on stiff denim, making a game of jumping around and bending about to loosen up the material the best they could.

His voice is hushed as he stands huddled near the door of the motel, phone to his ear, back to Beth. He isn’t wearing his vest and she looks around the room to try and find it, but can’t before the bedsprings squeak under the movement of her weight. Daryl throws a look over his shoulder at her before hanging up.

“Good morning,” she greets a bit sheepishly, moving her hand to her hair. It’s probably frizzy and matted down in a weird way, but she doesn’t really care in the moment. Daryl nods at her once before moving to grab his duffel bag and setting it on his bed. It’s then that Beth notices the bed is made, tucked and neat just as it was when she came there the night before. Did he even sleep?

“Merle’ll probably be back soon,” he states, grabbing the other bag (the one that she had dug through last night, she reminds herself with a bite of her lip) and zipping it shut. His eyes flicker over at her a few times but he never focuses them in on her, causing her to fidget. Finally she scoots to the edge of her bed and stands, stretching out her bones. 

“Okay. Well, um, thank you again, for letting me stay here. I owe you double now.”

“’s no big deal.” Daryl shrugs, his hands finding their way into his pockets, and she allows herself to stare at him.

“It is, though.” A silence passes over them and she’s not sure what to do, what she could possibly offer to repay the favor. He seems more on edge than she remembers him ever being and she wonders if that’s her doing, the fact that she’s here. “Can I just... wash up? And then I’ll be out of your hair.” He nods and she can see the exhaustion etched onto his features. 

She splashes cold water on her face and it feels so good; it wakes up her senses and she turns off the faucet, letting the small room grow quiet. Droplets of water fall from the tip of her nose and run down her chin, slipping down the curves of her neck. Beth tries to count the days in her head, how many have passed since she abandoned her life and her home and her family, but she can’t keep track. The weeks blur into one another; is it October yet? Maggie’s birthday must be coming up. 

A loud pounding shakes her from her reverie, drops of water spraying the mirror. There’s a voice along with it, male but not Daryl’s, yelling and she can hear the door to the motel room fly open. Beth pats down her face and wipes down the mirror with a towel before hesitantly opening the bathroom door and poking her head outside.

“Keep it down,” she hears Daryl hiss, smacking the other man in the arm. Beth flicks off the light in the bathroom and steps out; the other man turns and she vaguely remembers him from last night. Not his face, but his crinkled, dirty shirt and the broadness of his shoulders. He’s fairly intimidating and when he grins at her, all wolfish and toothy, her gut tells her to back up. But she stands her ground.

“Well, what have we got here?” The question’s rhetorical as his eyes move from Beth to Daryl and back to her again. He claps his brother on the shoulder and lets out a hearty laugh.

“Shut up, Merle. Ain’t like that,” Daryl growls, shrugging off his brother’s touch. “C’mon, I’ll take ya back to your car,” he tells Beth, pushing past his brother. But before he can reach the door, his arm is snagged.

“Whoa whoa, now can’t you at least introduce me, little brother?” There’s a struggle between the two of them and the last thing Beth wants to witness is another scuffle, so she speaks up.

“I’m Beth.” Her voice rings loud and clear, stilling the movements of both of the men. Merle lets go of the grasp he has on his brother, smiling again at her, though it’s more a smirk this time. She wonders if maybe he recognizes her name, that maybe Daryl has talked about her to him. But no look of recognition or understanding passes over his face.

“Well, darlin’, it’s nice to meet ya.” He holds out his palm and Beth takes it, doing her best to seem confident and composed, though her mind keeps drifting back to that bag of pills and the few ambiguous things Daryl has told her. “So you and my baby brother, then...”

“No,” both she and Daryl state at the same time. Her face heats up, thinking of the car and her boldness. There’s a bit of relief that washes over her though, when she notices Daryl’s cheeks seem to be burning too.

“Not like that. He was just nice enough to give me a place to sleep, is all,” Beth explains. A strange expression takes over Merle’s face as he turns his attention back to Daryl.

“That sure is awful kind of him. Maybe there’s some way you can settle that debt.”

“Merle, no,” Daryl whispers harshly, shaking his head more vigorously than she has ever seen. 

“How? I don’t have any money...” Beth explains weakly, suddenly feeling self-conscious about her hair and clothing, the bareness of her face.

“Don’t want your money, darlin’. Just a favor s’all. Got somethin’ that needs to be delivered--”

“I said no, Merle!”

“What is it?” she inquires, though something in her gut tells her she already knows.

“Beth, no. You don’t need to repay me. And especially not him,” Daryl all but barks at her. His tone catches her off guard, because he’s never spoken to her that way, but all she does is straighten her back.

“I can make that decision for myself. What needs to be delivered?” Daryl steps down at her reply, running his hand back through his hair as he begins to pace. He’s wearing his vest now, she notes, the wings catching her eye for just a second. 

Merle cracks another grin at her before moving to one of the duffle bags on the bed. Unzipping it, he yanks out the bag of pills and jingles it at her. Her stomach sinks a bit; of all things to be right about. And it’s wrong, she knows it’s wrong. Her thoughts must be etched on her face because Merle speaks up again.

“The guy who needs them, he’s in pain. These’ll help him out. I don’t want nobody in pain, do you?” She knows it’s probably a ploy, she isn’t dumb. And maybe she should turn and run now, she wonders, her gaze falling upon Daryl who appears more distressed than she is. If she leaves now, things will be okay. She can carry on with her running, even if she doesn’t have any money...

“Okay, I’ll do it.” Daryl’s head snaps up and he looks at her intensely. “But you need to help me with something else first.”

“And what’s that?” Merle asks with a cock of his head.

“I lost my wallet. My ID, cash, everything. So, this guy, he’s paying you, right?” Merle nods once, smirk still plastered on his lips. “I want a cut.”

“Boy, Darleena, you sure got yourself a tough one here.” He laughs and Daryl just stands behind him, jaw clenched. “Okay, darlin’, you got yourself a deal. I’ll give you a quarter cut, how’s that?” 

Beth holds out her hand to him again and he shakes it firmly. His skin is rougher and drier than Daryl’s, she silently remarks.

\---

The breeze off the river smells like nothing else. It reminds Beth that she’s only been to the ocean once before, when she was very little. Her family had traveled out to South Carolina and she doesn’t remember much except the deliciousness of crab and the pretty sandy beaches. And how much the saltwater had burned her eyes.

The riverfront in New Orleans is gorgeous in its own right too; the ships slowly sailing along and the clumps of people strolling by, chit chatting and taking in the beauty around them. Beth knows she’d enjoy it too, if it weren’t for the weight in her stomach and the brown bag tucked away in her purse, beating loud and obnoxiously at her like the Tell-Tale Heart.

Merle had talked her through it, told her the guy’s name was Randall and a vague description of what he looked like, what she should say. He’ll hand her the money first and then she can set the bag on the bench. Easy as pie, he had crowed, but everything is easier that it seems. If it was so easy, then why didn’t he just do it? That’s what she had asked him, even if she knew it was a bit stupid.

“Feels like every pig in this damn city knows our mugs.” Beth reasoned with herself that it was hard to forget either of their faces, though maybe for different reasons.

Now, Merle and Daryl sit just down the way, munching on po’ boys like everything’s fine and dandy. She steals a glance at them and well, it looks like only Merle is chowing away; Daryl’s eyes are trained on her and she feels a bit nervous under his gaze, like she’s being graded or something. She knows he didn’t want her to help out with this, because he wanted her gone or because he didn’t want her caught up in their business, she isn’t entirely sure. But it wasn’t anything _too_ awful that she was doing. Maybe this Randall guy really was sick, maybe the stuff she was carrying would help him somehow.

A young man slows in front of her bench and looks her over, clearly confused. He’s wearing a hoodie that looks to be a size too big and Beth wonders how he can stand to be in that under the mid-day sun. 

“Um, are you looking for Merle?” she asks him, clutching at her bag out of instinct. The man nods and Beth’s heart drops a little bit. He is much younger than she had originally imagined. She tilts her head to the open spot beside her and he sits, all fidgety and sweaty palms rubbing against the knees of his jeans. “It’s okay,” she assures him, though that wasn’t a part of the dialogue she and Merle had discussed, but the poor guy is clearly in distress. Her words slow his movements some but he says nothing as he pulls out a small wad of bills and sets it on the bench between them.

Beth licks over her lips and tries to be casual as she unclasps her purse and pulls out the small bag. There’s a thought in the back of her head that maybe this is set up, maybe she’s about to get rushed by the police. But before her mind can even finish playing out the worst case scenario, Randall stuffs the bag into the pocket of his hoodie and bolts up to his feet, heading back the way he came.

Her breath gets caught in her throat and she feels a slight rush of adrenaline before slipping the money into her purse and finding her way to her feet. She keeps her head down, accidentally bumping into someone and giving a half-hearted apology as she swiftly walks, one foot after the other. By the time she reaches the brothers’ table, Daryl is at his feet and his eyes are laced with something that resembles concern.

Beth opens her bag and tosses the wad of money at Merle, who smiles up at her as he sucks his fingers clean.

“Now see, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?” he asks her, and Beth wonders if she is gonna be sick. Merle counts the money before pulling a few bills aside and handing them to her. Forty dollars. 

The money is dirty and she knows she shouldn’t take it but she has nothing. No way to pay for gas, to get out of here or to head back home or anything at all. So with a swallow, she folds it up neatly and slides it into her pocket. 

Merle stands and wipes his hands on his pants, announcing he’s off to take a piss. Once he’s out of earshot, Beth looks over at Daryl, whose eyes are trained on the ground.

“I thought he’d be older,” she says, her voice so soft, she’s not sure if he hears until he peeks up at her through bits of his hair. “He might’ve been my age.” She doesn’t expect Daryl to comfort her or justify her actions, because she knows they aren’t really justifiable. But his silence lets her know enough, that he doesn’t feel all that great about the situation either. 

“Whatcha gonna do now?” Daryl questions. She shrugs and almost laughs, because that’s typically what he does in response to her.

“I don’t know. Still got no ID. Maybe... maybe my wallet wasn’t stolen. Maybe I dropped it at the bar and someone turned it in.” Daryl quirks an eyebrow at her, picking up his half-eaten sandwich and offering it to her. She wants to decline but she realizes she hasn’t eaten in half a day; her stomach is empty and who knows when she’ll have her next actual meal? 

“Sudden faith in humanity?”

“I’ve always had faith in people. I had faith in you last night, didn’t I?” It’s meant in a light-hearted manner, but he takes it more seriously than that, she can tell. Maybe she means it honestly too. She takes a bite of the po’ boy and a sound escapes the back of her throat at the taste. She flushes a bit and Daryl hides his smile. 

“I’ll go there with ya, to see if anyone turned it in. If ya like.” 

It’s crossed her mind quite a few times now, how maybe she should cut ties with Daryl, with these brothers, and go on with things on her own. That’s what she had set out to do when she left home. But plans change, she convinces herself. There’s some sort of connection she feels towards Daryl, like God or the universe or whatever is out there is trying to bring them together for one reason or another. It sounds silly but she feels it, it must be true. It can’t be for the purpose of dealing drugs, it has to be for another reason. And since she hasn’t figured that out yet, why should she cut their fate short?

“Sure, that’d be nice.”

Beth can’t remember the name of the bar she was at, but she recalls how to get there from the parking lot. New Orleans is a lot different during the daytime; there’s more families, more blatant tourists. A trio of preteens dart past her and Daryl on the sidewalk and she lets herself smile. They all hop over a large puddle but the smallest of the group falls just short, shoes and legs splattering with water. His running falters and he whines, the bigger two dragging him along.

The bar is nearly empty once they arrive, and she figures that makes sense considering it’s not even two in the afternoon. There’s a scruffy gentleman behind the bar and he’s somewhat familiar from the night before. Daryl awkwardly waits by the door, chewing on his thumbnail.

“Excuse me, I think I lost my wallet here last night. Did anyone turn it in?” She describes it briefly but before she can finish, the man offers her a genuine grin and nods before squatting down and rummaging through a drawer. He produces the wallet and her heart soars. There are still honest people out there. The barkeep tells her a dark-haired younger man turned it in. _Gareth_! “Thank you so much!”

She all but skips back over to Daryl, flipping the wallet over in her hand as if she can’t believe it. Beaming over at him, he straightens up.

“Everything still in there?” Beth’s about it answer yes but she honestly hasn’t checked yet; she cracks the thing open and sees her young, bright face on her ID, the strip of her lone credit card, and the crinkled corner of a family photo. But the little cash she had left in there last night is gone. Her face falters and he seems to notice. “Money gone?”

“Yeah...”

“Probably swiped the cash, then turned it in. Got no need for the rest of that stuff.” Beth knows he is probably right, it makes sense now that he put it into words. But her blood still simmers at the thought of Gareth, all slick and charming... what an ass. She tries to focus on the important thing, that she had most of her stuff back. The forty bucks she has now makes up for the missing money, a tad.

“What if he looked at where I live? That’s a bit creepy,” she wonders aloud, holding the wallet out to him in emphasis. His eyes dart down to it and she purposely covers her face on the license with her thumb. She was sixteen in the photo and while it really wasn’t all that long ago, she sure looked different then. 

“Don’t really matter considerin’ you’re on the road anyway, y’know?” His words allow her to relax a bit, shoulders sloping down and tension releasing from her neck. She thinks of her family but she knows it’s a farfetched thought. Georgia might as well be a world away; there is no reason to fret. He probably didn’t even bother looking at her other junk anyway, just took the cash and fled, like Daryl said.

Daryl holds the door for her as they wander back onto the street. She stuffs her wallet into her purse and latches it shut, holding onto it tightly with her hand. The pair walk in amicable silence for a few blocks and it hits her just how comfortable she has become around him. There’s no reason for her to trust him, but she does. Something draws her into him and it’s part of the reason why she allows herself to believe he’s a good man, even if he says otherwise. It’s why she let herself sleep in the same room as him, why she allowed her lips to be loose and herself to open up. And why she kissed him, of course. No, Daryl couldn’t be bad, at least not all bad like he had confessed to being.

“You know you don’t have to do that stuff, right? The drug dealing and that,” she suddenly speaks up before she can even think about it. Daryl stiffens a bit beside her and avoids looking at her, pulling out a cigarette. “I just mean there’s other ways to make money.”

“Says the girl who ain’t got nothin’,” he mutters around the cigarette, lighting it.

“I haven’t _tried_ to make any money. Well, except earlier.” She pauses, tiptoeing around the same puddle the kids were jumping over earlier.

“Don’t go talkin’ like you know me.” His tone is defensive, but it’s not nearly as harsh as it was earlier that morning. And for whatever reason, the thought of him blowing up at her doesn’t scare her. She just thinks of his half-smiles and the shy glances he’s thrown over her way before.

“You’re right, I don’t know you all that well. But I know some things. I know you can be kind and that you can be a decent man. You’ve showed me that on more than one occasion. And I know Merle’s family--”

“You definitely don’t know Merle,” he cuts her off, finally throwing a look her way, his eyes intense. He spits down at the sidewalk, his pace suddenly picking up. She has a moment of difficulty but manages to keep up, her hand reaching for his arm. Daryl jerks away, as if her fingers are hot embers.

“Daryl, stop! I just mean that I don’t think you like doin’ that stuff. And you didn’t want me doin’ it. Maybe Merle doesn’t like it either. So do something else, find another way to get by. You can make an honest livin’.” His strides slow a bit as he flicks off the ashes from his cigarette and the spirals of orange take her back to Texas. Daryl was alone there, Merle was nowhere to be found. She contemplates why. “That’s all I’m sayin’.”

Neither talks again until they reach the parking lot. Merle’s sitting in his truck, once again parked next to Daryl’s bike. Beth’s car is still there too. A certain weight of dread settles onto her shoulders and it’s come to be a very unfortunate, well-known feeling.

“Well, sweetcheeks, where are you headin’ now?” Merle asks her in a drawn out drawl. Beth feels for the cash in her pocket and knows it won’t get her far before she has to start working. Maybe she can find a waitressing job somewhere.

“I hadn’t figured that out yet.”

Merle throws a look over at Daryl, but the younger man doesn’t acknowledge it. He just tosses down the butt of his cigarette and stomps it out. 

“You could always tagalong with us. Could use the comely company of a lady such as yourself.” At that, Daryl’s head snaps up and he all but sends daggers with his eyes at his brother. Beth’s not sure if it’s because of the offer or his choice of words. Silently, she hopes it’s for the latter.

The offer is tempting. She has no plan, though she never had one to begin with. But it’s nice having some sense of purpose, a reason for being out here. Just because she’s with some other folks doesn’t make it any less about her. Beth remembers the loneliness that had consumed her not too long ago and she hadn’t felt it in any of her time with Daryl. Merle’s questionable, at best, and while she still harbors some doubts about him, he had been a man of his word up until now.

“You really wouldn’t mind that?” she challenges, her eyes bouncing from one brother to the other. She expects Daryl to protest again but he stays quiet and shrugs. 

“It’d be our pleasure.” Merle grins at her again and she can’t help but think of the story of Red Riding Hood. She laughs at the thought and he’s none the wiser because he laughs too, looking over at his brother as if he expects him to join in as well. Daryl doesn’t, but the corners of his lips twitch and only she catches it. 

Merle says they’re heading to Little Rock and they can make it there before nightfall if they haul ass. The men load Daryl’s bike up into the bed of the truck and strap it in good. Beth strangely finds herself a bit sad that she won’t get to see him ride it (or rather, that she won’t get a chance to ride it again), at least not now. 

They stop at a nearby gas station and while Beth waits for her tank to fill, Daryl suddenly appears beside her. He holds out his hand and in it is an opened package of powdered donuts. She smiles at the sentiment and takes one, popping it in her mouth. 

“Don’t know why you agreed to come with us,” he tells her and she’s half-inclined to lean into him, for the contact or to try and smell him, she’s not really sure which. 

“I wasn’t headin’ anywhere.”

“Thought you said before that you _were_ headin’ anywhere.” She smiles and there it is again, that weird fluttering inside her that he seems to set off with the simplest of words or looks. 

“Guess I am now.”


	4. Part 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and a special extra thanks to all of you who have left such sweet comments and feedback. Getting those honestly makes my day and it means so much to me. 
> 
> I appreciate every single one of who reading this right now, truly!
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

The drive is long. Beth had started her adventure (journey was probably a better word, considering her intentions weren’t to find thrills or fun) looking forward to the time alone, the driving by herself and moments for peaceful introspection. But time sometimes brings change and she finds herself watching the brothers ahead of her, their heads turning towards one another every so often, arms hanging out the windows... and she wishes she had a companion. She wishes she was sitting in there with them, just for the company.

Merle is a reckless driver, if she ever saw one. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with him, with his swerving and cutting others off and his lead foot mentality. There are moments she’s tempted to roll down her window and shout apologies to the other drivers on the road. _I’m sorry, we’re just in a hurry_ or _he didn’t mean to, he probably didn’t even see you there!_ But instead, she focuses her eyes on the truck ahead of her. Sometimes she tests herself and diverts her gaze somewhere else, just for a second, to see if she really does have the rusted letters and numbers on the white license plate memorized. She does. And it’s only then she makes the connection that they have Georgia plates too.

It’s dark when they stop at a Waffle House. Beth’s not sure how far Little Rock is now or if they are planning on staying somewhere else for the night. She doubts it.

The two men are talking amongst themselves, finishing up cigarettes as she emerges from her car, and it’s so nice to hear something other than the rumble of her engine, the tapping of her own fingers, the sweeps of her own singing voice. Still a bit unsure, she approaches them slowly, not wanting to interrupt or impose. But Merle just grins at her as he stubs out his smoke and Daryl stares at her in a way that warms her skin.

There are a few other folks there, two semi drivers and a younger couple, all bright eyes and giggles. The smell of waffles and bacon and coffee causes her stomach to gurgle and she might be embarrassed if Merle wasn’t slapping his belly like Santa Clause and Daryl wasn’t leering over the countertop at the grill, like a cat watching a mouse. Beth excuses herself to the restroom as the brothers slip into a booth. 

She feels a bit grimy, driving all day seems to always leaving her in dire want of a shower. But Beth notes that at least she looks more well-rested; the purple beneath her eyes has faded some and there’s more color in her cheeks (though that could be caused by something else). She washes her hands and smells her shirt, thankful it still is neutral. Her jeans are filthy and still stiff from the other night; she wonders if there’ll be a laundromat nearby, nearby wherever they end up staying. She has no idea where that is as of now.

Quickly redoing her hair and attempting to tame some of the wisps flying around, she exits the bathroom and bumps into one of the men she assumes is a trucker. He’s a bit slimy looking but she tries her best to push that thought from her head, it’s not very kind. His teeth are tinted as he grins at her and she catches the embroidered name on the side of his ball cap: Ed. Beth apologizes and quickly moves down the hallway, back towards the eating area.

There’s a brother on either side of the booth and she doesn’t have to debate long before she slides in next to Daryl. He doesn’t look up from his menu as she picks up her own, the plastic laminate sticky with what she hopes is syrup. Their waitress stops by to take their orders. She’s stunning, curvy and long-legged in a way that Beth knows she won’t ever be. Her beauty’s not lost on Merle either, who calls her ‘sugar’ and all but ogles her. Merle orders something called the All Star and when Beth sees how much food the picture displays, she wonders how he’ll put it all away. Daryl tells the waitress he wants a waffle with peanut butter and Beth finds it a little gross, but she knows she can’t say much because like a little kid, she orders chocolate chip. Merle watches a bit too closely as the waitress waltzes away.

If there’s any awkwardness at the table, Merle stomps over it. He does most of the talking and he pulls Beth into conversation more than his brother.

“How’d a little thing like you end up on the road all by yerself?” Beth doesn’t take offense to the question, though maybe his wording could be slightly less condescending. 

“Just needed a change, I suppose.” The way the older man looks at her sometimes makes her uneasy, just because she fears he sees through her vague answers. “Wanted to get away.” He looks like he wants to ask something else, but the waitress struts on back over and fills up each of their mugs. Beth may not know him well, like Daryl had pointed out earlier, but she’s not surprised when he gets up and moves to a stool along the counter, trying to catch the waitress’s attention.

With Merle gone, Beth’s suddenly aware of how close she’s sitting to Daryl. He doesn’t seem to notice though, his head turned towards the window and eyes trained on the road. A passing car flies by, the white of the headlights illuminating and dancing across his face. He looks younger then, and so tired; she wants to ask him the last time he slept, because she’s pretty sure he got none the night before. But she doesn’t want him to suddenly pull back, which she has noticed he does if she pries too hard. She takes in a deep breath and can smell the cigarette smoke still on him. Her inhale causes his head to flip back to her and she smiles.

“So... where are we stayin’? I mean, where are you two stayin’?” When she says it out-loud, she realizes it might be silly of her to think that she’ll be tagging along with them everywhere. Even if she was invited along, that didn’t mean she had to spend all her hours with them. They probably wouldn’t want that anyway.

Daryl shrugs. “We’ll find someplace.”

“A motel? Are you... are you gonna be dealin’ again?” she asks, her voice dropping off towards the end. Daryl stares at her intently but he’s saved from answering when the waitress brings over their plates of food. She only carries over two and when Beth looks back over to Merle, he’s lounging at the counter, happily stuffing his face and sweet talking their smirking waitress as she wanders back towards him.

Daryl wastes no time digging in and Beth can’t help but make a face at the sight of him shoveling in too big of a forkful. He must feel her eyes on him because he leans over towards her, her gaze automatically falling to his lips, the apples of her cheeks flushing. But all he does is pop another huge forkful into his mouth for emphasis.

“Gross,” she tells him, but she ends up laughing and he smiles a bit too. Finally, she digs in and surprises herself by how quickly it disappears. 

With her belly full, she leans back in her seat and all she really wants is a nap. She swears she can feel the heat radiating off of Daryl beside her and like a magnet, she’s all but drawn to side, ever so slightly. Their shoulders touch and press together and her eyelids must be showing just how heavy they feel because of what he tells her.

“We’ll find a place the three of us can crash at soon.”

“So, I can stay with you?” He nods once and with one last sleepy but contented look at him, Beth lets her eyes fall shut. They aren’t closed for more than a few moments when Merle’s booming voice shakes her from her rest. Daryl’s body pulls back and she tightens her core to support herself, his warmth and presence unfortunately missing.

“You two done lollygaggin’?” Merle barks and Beth thinks she hears Daryl snort, but she’s too caught off guard by the eldest brother’s sudden change in mood. Tilting her head some, she spots the waitress, still smirking and whispering to another girl, clad in the same uniform. 

“What, we don’t gotta wait ‘round for you to get yours in a bathroom stall?” There’s amusement laced in Daryl’s voice as Merle reaches over her head, she ducking down a bit too. His hand goes out to smack his brother but it misses.

“Shut your trap!” 

Beth scoots out and onto her feet, fumbling with her purse to pull out some money. But Daryl lightly brushes his hand along her arm and stills her movements. 

“Merle’s got this one,” he tells her, and there’s something sparkling in his eyes that causes her to grin stupidly and realize too late that she is looking at him longer than she probably should.

Daryl leads her outside just as Merle starts lipping off to Ed, the dirty trucker, chuckling and openly staring at him. Beth can’t help but giggle a little bit and hope that Merle tells him off.

“He flipped a switch,” she states just as the door closes, silently. Daryl shrugs and licks over his lips, strolling to the back of the truck and seemingly inspecting his motorcycle. 

Beth doesn’t know how much further they’re driving, where they are driving, anything at all, but the thought of being alone in her car again is a not so pleasant one. Daryl isn’t the most talkative guy she’s met, that’s for sure, but she finds his company enjoyable and somehow comforting. 

“If he’s in a bad mood now, maybe you can ride with me. If you like. I mean, it gets a little old driving by myself all the time anyway. Sick of the sound of my own voice,” Beth rambles on a bit, rolling her eyes at herself. Daryl’s attention only briefly tears away from his bike.

“Ya talk to yourself?”

“What? No. I mean, sometimes, I guess. Doesn’t everyone? I meant more like singin’.”

“Ya sing?” Beth nods her head, a little bit sheepish for some reason, though she isn’t sure why. And Daryl doesn’t give her an answer to her offer, so she assumes that means no. Maybe he remembers how she acted the last time he was in her car and he doesn’t want a repeat of history. But once Merle is outside, sour-faced and stomping, Daryl speaks up again. “I’mma ride with Beth.”

Merle seems to think nothing of it and waves him off, slamming the driver’s side door of the truck after he climbs in, and Beth has to hustle into her car to keep up and not lose him as he peels out of the parking lot.

The pair are quiet for a little while and she debates turning on the radio for a good ten minutes before finally doing so. The station comes in and out but it’s old country, the kind her mother used to listen to, and she hums along even if she doesn’t recognize all of the songs.

“My momma loved this song,” she comments, recognizing the opening bars to a Merle Haggard song. “They’re takin’ you away, leavin’ me lonely... silver wings, slowly fadin’ out of sight.” Maybe it is her sleepiness or the strange, bittersweet nostalgia that creeps down her spine, but thinking on her mother has Beth caught up in her own head. It hadn’t even been a full year since she had passed and on that night when Beth drove away from her home, her life, her sleeping father, she convinced herself that her leaving had nothing to do with her mother’s death. Thought she had convinced herself, anyway.

Daryl glances at her for a moment before he reaches over and turns off the radio. She’s about to protest but can’t find any words. The way he looks at her, not necessarily concerned but definitely curious, has her wondering just how much he is able to pick up. She blinks rapidly and clears her throat, focusing her sight on the truck’s license plate again, reciting it to herself mentally.

“Sick of hearin’ all this whinin’ country crap,” Daryl says, almost in an appeared attempt to explain why he shut the music off. She doesn’t really believe him but she nods in understanding anyway. “Merle loves it. Bet he’s listenin’ to it now, ‘specially after gettin’ rejected by that broad.” Beth’s thankful for the subject change and she laughs lightly, something real.

“So that’s what happened?”

“Probably. Goes after any pretty girl he’s sees, no matter if she’s outta his league.” She can see it, Merle all smooth talking and charming smiles, laying it on thick. She reckons he did it a bit with her, but it was different, somehow. Maybe because of Daryl. Her stomach flutters some at that thought and she bites back a smile, chewing on her lower lip.

“He has a certain charm about him, I suppose.” Daryl snorts again, scooting down in his seat like he’s getting comfortable.

The road is nearly pitch-black and that’s when Beth notices that they are off the beaten trail, the road beneath her wheels rough and only the occasional isolated house popping up. But it’s mainly darkness and quiet and when she cracks her window down, all she hears are their cars and the whistle of the wind. 

Merle’s driving slows considerably, almost as if he’s on the lookout, and she knows something is up. She glances to Daryl for some kind of answer but he’s staring out his own window intently. Beth’s car creeps behind the truck, she suddenly anxious. She wonders if they’re looking for someone, to make another deal.

“What is it?” she whispers, and all Daryl does is hold up the back of his hand to her. Suddenly Merle’s brake lights flash and he parks his car, right in the middle of the road. Merle’s out on his feet in a matter of seconds and he waves over at them. Beth notices a flashlight in his hand that he flicks on, keeping the light low to the ground.

“Wait here,” Daryl tells her and she’s about to protest, to ask again what the hell is going on, but he’s out of the car before she can get a word out. The brothers venture down a dirt path off the road and as her eyes adjust to the blackness of night, she spots the outline of what looks to be a house. It must be a deal.

She parks her car and drums her fingers on the steering wheel, a weird twist in her gut, afraid that as ridiculous as it is, a cop car is gonna crawl on by and they’ll be busted, she’ll be towed along to jail with them. So to push the thoughts from her mind, she turns the radio back on but the station is completely lost, just garbled noise. She flicks it back off.

There’s a knock at the passenger side window and she all but jumps out of her skin. It’s only Daryl though, who speaks through the glass.

“Pull on in over here,” he states, pointing towards the dirt path. Still confused, she does listen, following down the pathway, around the curve of it, her car now hidden from the main road by a large hickory tree and rows of large, overgrown bushes. Beth kills the engine and she was right, it is a house. There’s no lights on inside and she spots Merle at a window along the front porch, jimmying it open, flashlight held between his teeth. 

As she steps outside, Daryl pulls the truck in behind her, his headlights already killed.

“So you guys are squatters too?” she questions once Daryl is in earshot, somewhat shocked. But really, she knows she shouldn’t be.

“Ain’t nobody usin’ it anyway. You rather sleep outside? Or in your car again? Gonna rain again,” he shrugs, waiting back as if to see if she was going to join them. Beth turns her head to the sky and it looks overcast from what she can tell, she can’t easily spot the moon. She rocks side to side, the friction of her jeans reminding her of just how awful it was sleeping in wet clothes.

With no answer, she makes her way to porch, the few front steps creaky and worn. There’s slates of lumber crisscrossed over the door and it’s so ominous and depressing to look at. Merle’s just climbing inside the window when Daryl follows suit, poking his head back outside and holding a hand out to her. She takes it, gingerly, and ducks down, climbing in through the window.

It smells musty and she prepares herself for the possibility that some kind of animal might pop out and lunge at them at any second. She can hear Merle wandering about a few rooms over, his whistling and the drag of his shoes, like it’s just another day on the job.

Beth’s eyes adjust further and while there isn’t much furniture inside what she assumes is the living room, there’s some. There’s a lumpy, sad looking love-seat and a few stacked crates, sheets of newspaper torn and crumpled, like someone was packing dishes in a hurry. Her fingers trace along the windowsill and even though she can’t see it very well, she can feel a layer of dust and dirt.

Daryl disappears into another room and she watches his fuzzy silhouette pace back and forth for a moment before following him. It’s the remains of a kitchen, dead refrigerator door cracked open and one of cabinet doors hanging on by just one hinge. Daryl’s opening the rest, like he’s looking for something in particular, and while Beth doesn’t know what she can even hope to find, she starts doing the same. 

She starts at the lower ones, resting on her knees and pulling open the door beneath the sink. There’s a bottle of half used dish soap and a few old rags. There’s a plastic bucket too which she’s hesitates to look inside. It reminds her of years ago, her and Maggie outside playing when they heard their mother shrieking inside the house. They had bolted inside to see what was wrong and both girls fell into laughter fits when they heard her scolding their brother Shawn, who had been keeping a baby brown snake as a pet, in a bucket, in the linen closet.

Beth tips the bucket to the side and there’s no snake to be seen, nothing at all.

The stream of light from Merle’s flashlight appears in the doorway and she squints at the brightness, unable to make out his face. He must not see her because he only addresses Daryl when he speaks.

“Only one bed. ’s mine, less you and your lil lovebird wanna fight me for it.”

“Shut up, Merle,” Daryl bites back but all the older man does is chuckle as he struts back down the hallway, light traveling with him. A door bangs shut and she mirrors it, quietly shutting the cabinet door. She stands again and Daryl regards her, almost timidly. 

“You should sleep,” he directs her and while it may be coming from a concerned or kind place, she’s not in the mood to be bossed around. So she pushes back her shoulders and leers over at him until he feels her gaze, halting his rummaging to look back her way. “Hm?”

“Maybe _you_ should sleep.”

“What?”

“When was the last time you slept? Do you sleep at all at the motel last night?” An unusual look passes over Daryl’s face and she can’t read it, she can rarely ever seem to read him.

“Why you askin’?”

“Did you?”

“You interrogatin’ me now? This 20 Questions?” She expects him to get defensive but he says it almost playfully. Daryl turns his back to her again and finishes exploring the row of cabinets he’s on.

“It just seemed like you didn’t. And you should rest if you didn’t, you need sleep.” Now she hopes she isn’t the one coming off bossy; her concerns sprouts from a genuine place. After all he’s done for her, Beth finds herself somehow _caring_ for his wellbeing. Sure, she knows she is a compassionate person, she honestly wants the best for everyone, but this is different. It’s personal. And that’s a peculiar thing for her to accept, that she cares about this man, she worries about him as if they were friends or something of another sort. She doesn’t even know his last name.

“I’ll sleep tonight.” She accepts this answer and her own thoughts have her reeling. Beth steps back into the living room, the window still open and the breeze blowing through. A chill creeps down her spine and she shakes it off, moving to tug the window down and latch it shut. 

Taking a seat on the wooden floor, she leans her back against the arm of the love-seat and pulls her knees up to her chest. Spits of rain start hitting the roof and oh, she hopes there aren’t any leaks. The floorboards creak and Daryl’s outline appears again in the doorframe.

“Couch is yours, go’n sleep.”

“No, you’re gonna sleep. You promised you would.”

“I didn’t promise...” He didn’t but she gives him a look anyway and she hopes he can see it. He mumbles something under his breath and she’s about to call him out on it when he gives in and moves to the love-seat, plopping down. Beth smiles and looks over her shoulder at him as he kicks his feet up and lays back, his head only about a half a foot from her own. “We’ll switch out, in a bit.”

“Okay,” she agrees in a soft voice, the silence engulfing both of them. She listens closely, to the rain and Daryl’s breathing as it steadies and levels out. With each exhale, his breath tickles her hair and the back of her neck and it makes her squirm. She shifts her position and the wood creaks loudly beneath her, so badly that she doesn’t even have to look at him to know that whatever sleep he had lulled into, he’s been roused from.

“So, you like singin’?” His voice cuts through the room and she’s surprised by the question. It seems random and out of place, but she looks over her shoulder and can see that his face is turned towards her.

“Yeah... why?” Her ears pick up the ruffle of his shirt and vest, and she assumes it’s from him shrugging in response.

“Thought we was playin’ 20 Questions.” Beth lets out a laugh and if she could hear a smile, she likes to think she’d hear his.

“We can. Do you sing?” Daryl snorts.

“Naw. Can’t carry a tune in my pocket.” Beth turns so she’s sitting parallel to the couch, getting a better look at him, as best she can anyway, in the shadows of the house. “How’d you start singin’?”

It’s Beth’s turn to shrug. “Church, I guess. My momma used to sing too, there was always music in our house.” He seems to hum something in reply and how she wishes she had Merle’s flashlight at the very least. She wants to see Daryl’s face, the expressions that cross it even if she can hardly ever read them. She remembers her thought from earlier. “What’s your last name?”

He doesn’t say a word for a long moment and she wonders if she shouldn’t have asked. Maybe he and Merle really are on the run from the law and they’re wanted felons; maybe he’s afraid she’ll recognize their names if she hears it. As much as the thought should make her uncomfortable (or that’s what she tells herself), she’s very calm and relaxed. It’s an interesting thought, but she knows deep down that it just can’t be case.

“Dixon,” he finally says, clearing his throat.

“Daryl Dixon. ‘s like the name of a superhero or somethin’,” she replies with a small grin, leaning over and nudging his shoulder with her own, the best she can.

“Yeah, right.”

“Mine’s Greene, my last name.”

“I know.” His admission catches her off-guard and she’s more confused than weirded out. He must be able to pick up on her reaction because he elaborates. “When you showed me your ID, at the bar.”

“Oh. Well, you’re observant.”

“Gotta be.”

“What else have you observed about me?” she wonders aloud, resting her cheek against her knees. He shifts around again, his arm brushing along the top of her head as he curls it around the back of his own.

“That’ll take all night to list.” If it’s a joke, the humor’s lost on her because she takes it seriously and suddenly she’s glad they are consumed in darkness. She knows she’s probably flushed and smiling like a moron. “We at 20 Questions yet?” She giggles and she wants to reach out to him, to squeeze his hand or touch his hair, but she can’t see and she doesn’t know what he thinks. They haven’t talked about the kiss or anything else, it hasn’t been brought up or hinted at. And now isn’t the time to bring all that up, when he’s nearly nodding off on her from pure fatigue and she wishes to do the same.

“We can be. Go on, sleep.”

“You should too.”

“I will.”

“’m serious.” His voice is heavy with exhaustion and she doesn’t expect to feel his hand on her shoulder. “Lay your head down there, by my feet. ‘s room.” 

Beth’s not sure what he means at first, but she realizes he’s telling her to climb onto the love-seat too. Bracing herself on the edge of the arm, she carefully moves onto it and turns her body, laying opposite of him. It’s a bit snug and yeah, his feet are closer to her face than she liked, but it’s certainly more comfortable than laying on the floor. To make more room, she loops her arm around his legs and they must look silly. She just smiles though and lets her eyes close before she speaks.

“Can I ask one more thing?”

“Mhm.”

“Are peanut butter waffles actually that good?” She can feel his body rumble with a small bit of silent laughter and he doesn’t answer, at least not before she’s out like a light.


	5. Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay with this chapter, life has been busy! 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading, you don't know how much it means to me. All the kind comments and kudos make my day in so many ways. I truly appreciate each and every one of you.
> 
> Hopefully you'll enjoy this next part!

It takes some convincing on Beth’s part to have the brothers go along with her wish of doing some laundry. But her jeans are practically unbearable to wear and she’s running low on semi-clean clothes anyway. She’s sure she probably doesn’t smell that great, but at least she knows she’s not the worst offender.

“You guys smell, both of you,” she states, straightforward. Daryl looks a bit confused but Merle laughs and pretends to air out his shirt. “You aren’t too busy to forget basic hygiene completely.”

“My bag’s in the truck, if you wanna grab it...”

“I’m not doin’ your laundry, Merle,” she firmly retorts. Her eyes flicker over to Daryl and maybe he’s smirking a little but she can’t be sure. Merle, on the other hand, hides any shock he might feel from her sudden boldness and pulls out his wallet.

But she shakes her head. She’s not a maid, she tells them. Part of her is afraid that her tone and words will have some kind of consequence but Merle just grins and stuffs his wallet away.

They offer to drop her off and pick her up in a few hours. Merle and Daryl have “business” to attend to and while she is tempted to call them out on it, to give Merle the same spiel she had given Daryl a few days prior, it just didn’t seem like the right time. 

The laundromat is emptier than she thought it would be, but it’s daytime and she’s not even sure what day of the week it is. 

Beth jingles the coins in her hand before she starts popping them into the washing machine. The face of one catches her eye and she stops to inspect it. It’s a Georgia quarter and it’s really not that weird, but it still hits her harder than it should. She pockets it and with a long exhale, finishes paying in money.

Beth gets sucked in to some soap opera playing on the old dusty television suspended in the corner of the room. She can’t hear the dialogue all that well so she makes up her own story: Mindy tries to end things with David, her secret lover and her husband’s best friend, after she finds out her husband actually isn’t dead, like she was led to believe. 

The only thing that breaks her concentration on the tv is a hand that waves in front of her face, startling her. It’s Daryl, with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and the way he is smirking at her makes Beth squirm around in her seat.

“Ya alright, space cadet?” She’s sure as all hell that her cheeks are pink but she just makes a face at him before finally relaxing back in her seat. She glances over at the washing machine and notes that it’s still running.

“I’m fine. What are you doing here? Thought you guys had stuff to do,” she asks with a curious tilt of her head. Daryl shrugs before tossing his bag onto the floor. It’s weird seeing him fumble with a washing machine; it seems so out of character with his shaggy hair and leather vest, so much so that Beth has to smile. She watches as he shoves a shirt she knows is Merle’s into the machine and for some reason, she finds it sweet.

“Merle can handle it.” He pauses, digging around in his pocket for coins and counting them out in his hand. “’sides, you were right. We smell somethin’ awful.” Beth nods and lets out a small laugh before he looks over at the coin machine. He fishes out a dollar bill but before he can feed it in, Beth stops him.

“Here.” She digs out her remaining quarters from her pocket, flipping the Georgia one over with her thumb before handing them to him.

“Can’t take your hard earned money.” It’s unclear if it’s meant as a joke, at least to her, and her mind slips back to New Orleans and Randall and a heavy weight settles in the pit of her stomach.

“It’s okay. I... I was thinkin’ about maybe stayin’ ‘round here for a while, findin’ a job.” Daryl’s hand closes around the coins and he goes quiet all of a sudden. He feeds a couple in before tossing the lone one left back at her; she catches it with two hands. _If it’s Georgia, I’ll stay here._ She opens up her palms like a Bible and peeks down at it.

“Hmm,” Daryl hums in reply. Part of her wishes he’d protest or offer to stay with her, but that’s an absolutely ridiculous thing to hope for. It might be lonely at first, if he and Merle leave, but she’s been on her own before. She’s proved she can handle it, she can do it again. 

“I have maybe forty dollars to my name. And you and Merle have been so good to me, but I feel like I’m leechin’ off you or something. And that’s the exact opposite reason why I left home,” Beth explains to him, even though he didn’t ask. He’s still silent but he takes a seat beside her along the wall. 

“You ain’t leechin’,” he finally speaks up, after a lull in conversation. She smiles politely at him but she knows it’s true, nothing he can say will change that. “You’ve helped out, reminded me we ain’t pigs. Hell, anyone who can put up with Merle should be regarded a saint.” She snickers quietly at that, pressing her palms back together, just as he shrugs again. “Like havin’ you around.”

“You do?” she questions, her voice soft and not necessarily unsure, but curious. And the way Daryl shifts in his seat and mumbles under his breath in reply is enough to make her chest constrict. “I like bein’ around you too.” Maybe now is the time to bring it up, their little rendezvous in her car, but she’s not sure on how to go about it. 

“If ya wanna stay, stay. But don’t feel like we’re luggin’ you ‘round or somethin’. It ain’t like that.” 

“But I need money. My car seems like it’s guzzlin’ more gas than I can fill it with. And I can’t do what you and Merle do, I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Could sell it.”

“What?”

“Sell your car. Ride with Merle and I.”

“But... how would I get home?”

“Thought you were headin’ anywhere,” he reminds her with raised eyebrows. Beth bites down on her lip, absentmindedly flipping the coin over and over in her hand. It’s a scary thought, selling the only real piece of her life back home she has. But if she stays with the Dixons, it does seem silly to have practically a whole caravan driving around.

“I suppose I could.”

“Don’t gotta make a decision now. Just a thought.”

Silence drapes over them and Daryl seems to get sucked into the soap opera too while Beth loads her clothes into a dryer. She fiddles with the coin in her hand some more; it’s not Georgia, it’s an older quarter with an eagle on the back.

It’s dumb, to let a little thing like chance or luck dictate her choices. But Beth’s not so sure on what she should do. Daryl’s right though, she doesn’t have to make any decision right this second.

Once their laundry is done, Beth changes into some clean clothes in the bathroom stall. She’s washes up the best she can and realizes she’s running low on a few essential things. When she emerges from the restroom, she’s pleasantly surprised to see Daryl in a new set of clothes too. She notes he still has his vest on though, and she’s glad. 

There’s a gas station just across the street and Beth asks if they can make a pitstop before joining up with Merle again. 

The fresh, clean scent of detergent sticks to her hands and she catches whiffs of it when she bends and moves. It’s a nice change and it reminds her of home, of being little and running through sheets strung out on the clothesline, face first, the potent smell of her mother’s favorite soap hitting her full on. She remembers how nice it felt to sleep in a just made bed, all soft and cool and comforting. She smiles at the memory.

There’s a stand of postcards inside, some look worn and aged older than she is. ‘Greetings From Arkansas!’ a few say and others simply state ‘Little Rock’ in large block letters. She picks one up and flips it over. Maybe she should buy one, send it home, just so everyone knows she’s okay, so that they know she misses them.

But if she misses them so much, then why doesn’t she just head on back?

Thumbing the corner, she doesn’t know what she would say. She can’t tell them about Daryl or Merle, that’s a story that maybe she’ll tell Maggie, alone, a long time from now. This isn’t some vacation where she can simply highlight the peaks of her time traveling around. She ran away, she took off, with nothing more than a short note to explain that she wasn’t kidnapped or abducted. She _left_ them.

With a small sigh, she sets the postcard back and wanders down an aisle to pick up what she actually was looking for, some deodorant and soap. She had asked Daryl this morning if he had any of the latter and he had only shrugged in response. It was now her own personal mission to get the Dixon brothers to practice some better upkeep; clean clothes and soon regular basic hygiene will be crossed off the list.

Beth spots the back of his head a few aisles down, flipping through a magazine. Biting back a smile, she sets a package of bar soap onto the pages he’s reading.

“’s this?” he questions, flipping it over in his hand like he’s never seen the thing before.

“For you and Merle. And, well, me too.”

“Whatcha mean? I wash myself,” he tells her, defensively, tossing it back at her. She catches it a bit off-guard as he steps past her, moving to another aisle. “Anyway, didn’t seem to have a problem with me bein’ _dirty_ a few nights ago.”

Suddenly, her face is burning. Beth has wanted to talk about it, she really has, because it was something far too difficult for her to just forget about when she is spending all this time with him. And truth be told, she didn’t regret it, not really. It was exciting and new, and she likes him, in her own sort of way that was still all kinds of confusing. But she didn’t expect her actions, their kiss, to be brought up like this.

“I didn’t mean anything by this,” she explains, waving the soap around like a white flag. She has half the thought to toss it down and forget it completely, but she really could use it. And maybe her holding onto it proves some kind of point. “Just tryin’ to make a joke.”

“Yeah, it was hilarious.” His voice is flat and his back is to her again. With her cheeks still hot, she forces herself to hold her head high as she marches to the register to buy her things. Longingly, she looks at the postcards once more and by the time the cashier repeats her total twice to her, trying to get her attention, she lets herself forget about her family and clean sheets and dirty Daryl Dixon’s hands and mouth.

“Do you know the date?” she asks the girl at the register. She’s young and pretty, with blonde hair and bright blue eyes; they could even pass for sisters. There’s a mermaid hanging from a chain around her neck, Beth notices.

“The 8th.”

“Of October?” The young cashier gives Beth a strange look but nods. She lets out a soft thank you and dumps her change back into her purse, sliding her arm through the holes in the plastic bag.

How was it October 8th already?

Beth takes a seat on the curb outside, waiting for Daryl. She’s not sure what he’s doing, if he’s actually browsing or buying or just avoiding her at this rate. She goes over in her head how to apologize, what she can say to him, but did she really need to? It isn’t the first time he’s lashed out at her and it probably won’t be the last; he’s guarded, defensive, she’s gathered that by now. There must be a reason for it. Maybe she just needs to watch how she words things. Or cut back on her humor. It really wasn’t a funny joke, anyway...

The door swings open and she looks over her shoulder at the sound. Daryl squints in the sunlight but looks up at the sky anyway. She notes that he must’ve bought something because he has a bulky plastic bag of his own; Beth wonders what it is.

“Merle’ll be waitin’,” he informs her and she nods in understanding. She knows now is her moment to speak up and say something, to set things straight about that night and really her overall feelings towards him (even if she wasn’t totally clear on them herself). But before she can collect a coherent thought, he speaks up again. “I swipe stuff from motels.”

“Huh?”

“Soap and such. Shampoo, toothpaste. When we stay at places, I take ‘em.”

“Oh.” It makes sense and she feels silly for not thinking of it beforehand. Hell, she had been at a few motels herself with him. And the fact that he felt the need to explain himself to her, like she thought he was slob or something, it tugs at something in her chest. “I’m sorry. I really was just teasin’.” 

Daryl shrugs and mumbles something under his breath as he leads her back over to the truck. Daryl’s bike isn’t in the back anymore and she wonders if Merle has it; but before her mind can wander too far, she’s brought back to reality when he opens the passenger side door for her. He doesn’t hold it open or wait for her to climb in, but gesture doesn’t go unnoticed. He is a bit peculiar, she muses to herself.

When he starts the car, she nearly jumps out of her skin at the loud, thumping music that begins playing. It’s heavier rock, something she doesn’t recognize at all, but it seems to fit Daryl pretty well. Thankfully though, he lowers the volume before peeling out.

The sun’s just about to set and the sky reminds her of some Surrealist painting she saw in a textbook once, all soft edges and swirls and such vibrant colors that they just can’t be real. It’s a jarring contrast against the music, so vigorous and hard; but both are vivid in their own way. They don’t work together at all but in the moment they do, they toughen and soften, they push and pull. They balance one another.

Beth looks at Daryl, unshaven and intense eyes glued straight ahead. Nature and nurture. She starts thinking about him and about herself and, well, about a lot of things. 

People are born inherently good and though she’s not entirely convinced, maybe some are born bad. Sometimes things happen to good people that morph them into something else, and perhaps vice versa. That’s not to say that things can’t change even more or revert. Beth doesn’t know all there is to know about Daryl, not even close, she’s well aware of that. But she knows the kindness he has shown her is true and an honest part of him. She knows as well as anyone that hard times can change people, that it can wear down on their ingrained goodness. She can’t count how many stories she’s heard about her father and his own battles, she’s seen some of his struggles herself. And he’s a good man, he’s one of the best she’s ever come across. She sees bits and pieces of her father coming through Daryl, small speckles that shimmer beneath his resilient surface.

“Quit starin’.” It’s not until he calls her out on it that she realizes she was in fact staring, very intently. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say his cheeks and neck were tinted red, which is a little comforting considering her own overwhelming sense of embarrassment.

“Sorry. Lost in a daze.”

Daryl pulls into a parking lot of a somewhat crowded bar. There’s a row of motorcycles and as she hops out of the truck, she scans over them, looking for Daryl’s. A feeling of pride sweeps over her as she recognizes it, like she’s a child playing a game. She’d know his bike anywhere now. After riding on it, seeing him perched up on it, it’s a hard image to shake in the best way possible.

“Wait here,” he instructs her, but she shoots him a look and follows after him as he heads for the door. Daryl stops for a moment and all but glares at her; she’s half-surprised when he doesn’t protest again though, and allows her to follow.

It’s smokey and loud and she’s pretty sure her nose identifies the stench of vomit but she tries to block it out. She doesn’t exactly fit in, with her tattoo-less skin and farm girl clothes. Daryl blends right in though, but still they get looks as they wander across the floor. She gets it, they must look like an odd couple of sorts; but there’s a strange sense of satisfaction that swells up in her chest and it bubbles into courage, enough so that she reaches out and slides her fingers around his forearm. Daryl tosses a brief glance her way but he doesn’t seem to mind, at least as far as she can tell. He doesn’t pull away.

Merle’s laugh can be heard halfway around the world, she thinks to herself with a smirk. And there he is at the end of the bar, glass in hand as he cackles and slaps his knee, conversing with two men. She wonders if Daryl knows them.

“’Bout time, baby brother!” Merle croons, standing up to smack Daryl on the shoulder, even though the younger Dixon tries to duck away. There’s one empty stool at the bar and Daryl motions for Beth to sit, which she does. “How are ya, sweet thing?”

“Good. Got some clean clothes finally.” It’s funny how Beth finds herself more and more comfortable with Merle; in a way, she feels like she understands him more and while she doesn’t completely trust him, or trust him nearly as much as she trusts Daryl, she finds herself enjoying his company. He’s funny when he wants to be (and sometimes accidentally so, she reminds herself with a slight giggle, thinking of the Waffle House).

“Two beers for mi familia!” Merle yells down at the bartender.

“No,” both she and Daryl speak up at the same time, though Merle calling her family does cause a nice but strange feeling to spread over her skin. 

Daryl’s standing behind her, not too close but in arm’s reach. She turns her attention to him, wondering what the plan is. Are they making a deal? Are they hanging out? Daryl looks at her for a long moment but says nothing, and she’s none the wiser to what’s happening.

“How’d a girl like you get roped into the shenanigans of these two?” the man beside her asks and she’s startled for a moment. He’s big, really big, all broad shoulders and hunched over the bar like he’s three sizes too big for the place. Beth estimates he must be well over six feet tall. But he’s smiling at her in a way that’s contagious and she’s not at all deterred by his stature or the tattoos littering his skin.

“Guess I’m just lucky like that,” she jokes and thankfully, the man laughs. The bartender sets down a beer in front of her and she’s about to decline it again when the giant man nudges her.

“You should. It’ll make Merle more bearable.” At that, she grins and gives in, taking a long sip. She’s never been much of a beer drinker, everyone she knows back home always went for the harder stuff; but it goes down just fine.

“Oscar,” the man introduces himself as, holding out a hand.

“I’m Beth.” She shakes his hand gently and notices a specific tattoo curved around his forearm. It’s swirls of black and it reminds her of branches of a tree reaching up towards the sky. There’s a few words etched onto his skin, curved along the lines. “That’s beautiful.”

“Thanks. It’s for my kids.” Oscar smiles a bit wistfully and suddenly she feels awful for saying anything at all. She doesn’t pry or implore or even apologize, but she does give him her own smile, one that she hopes reads as warm. She grabs her beer and takes another long drink.

It’s then that she notices Daryl is missing and she wants to get up and search for him, but Merle steals her attention and insists she has to watch these two guys arm wrestle, because he’s got money on the scrawnier one. 

She gets caught up in the scene, the hooting and hollering, Merle’s arm slung around her shoulders like he’s her big brother or something. Oscar tells stories about each of his tattoos, how they are like permanent keepsakes, forever memorializing milestones in his life. But even swept up in their company, she still looks around every so often for Daryl and never finds him.

Time flies (or crawls? She’s not even sure) by and for whatever reason, she begins to worry. It’s dumb, she knows, because Daryl’s a grown man and he can obviously take care of himself. And while she feels oddly at ease in this bar, listening as Merle tells anyone with two ears stories that she believes are probably embellished a bit, her eyes keep scanning for Daryl. Finally, she excuses herself and weaves through the crowd to the door.

It’s cool, colder than she remembers it being when they first got there. It’s pitch dark and there’s only two lights in the parking lot, one flickering, besides the row of neon alcohol signs flashing in the windows.

She spots him in the blue glow of a Budweiser sign, sitting on his motorcycle, fiddling with something on it. Beth approaches him slowly, cautiously, until she’s close enough so that he has to be aware of her presence, even if he doesn’t acknowledge her.

“Seems like you miss ridin’ your bike.”

“’s not mine,” he retorts, and she pulls a face. But before she can ask for an elaboration, he gives her one. “’s Merle’s.”

“Oh.” Daryl lets out a sigh and sits up a bit straighter, finally peering over at her. She shivers a bit, arms wrapping around her midsection, and she swears it’s because of the night breeze.

“Was borrowin’ it, when we first met.” She smiles at the memory and how he phrases it.

“Well, it sure seems like yours. I always catch you checkin’ on it, admirin’ it.” Daryl shrugs and she hugs her arms a bit tighter around herself.

“Should grab a jacket, ‘fore you freeze to death.” Beth nods a bit sheepishly, taking a few steps backwards before she turns and walks back to the truck.

She reaches for her bag, tucked down on the floor of the cab, when something sticking out of her plastic bag from the general store catches her eye.

It’s a postcard. The front depicts the city of Little Rock in the bright colors of autumn, it’s name proudly printed in thick orange letters along the top. Flipping it over, she notes that it already has a stamp stuck to it.

Quickly, she tries to remember if she somehow could have accidentally swiped it. But there’s no way, she put it back! She put it back and they didn’t come pre-stamped. Suddenly she recalls sitting on the curb, waiting for Daryl. 

Standing up some, she peeks over at him through the window of the door, and he’s not paying her any attention. 

He had to be the one to put it there, she determines. She grows flustered at the thought of him regarding her, peeping over aisles at the gas station, watching as she longingly browsed through the rack. Did he know what she was thinking? That she was thinking of home and her family? It seems unlikely and really, why would he care? But he did claim to be observant. 

Beth tucks the postcard away and grabs a cardigan from her pile of clean laundry. It smells fresh and feels so soft; she knows it won’t last. Twenty minutes in the bar and she’ll be back to reeking of cigarettes and other nightly scents. But she enjoys it for the moment and maybe it’s the invigorating whiff of laundry detergent or the breeze causing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up... Maybe it’s the postcard and Daryl’s obvious thoughtfulness, maybe it’s how he regards her with raised eyebrows when she’s at his side again, grinning from ear to ear. 

But she can’t help it, even if they haven’t really talked about it; she leans in and presses a quick, sweet kiss to the corner of his mouth, just missing his lips full on. And before he can say or do anything, she slides her arms around him from behind and straddles the bike.

“Can we go for a quick ride?” she all but pleads, her mouth and breaths hitting the back of his shoulder. 

He simply nods once and this time, he doesn’t have to tell her to hold on tight before cruising out of the lot.


	6. Part 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up reworking this chapter a bit; I wanted it to be lighter, happier, considering recent events with the television show. Obviously this update should speak for itself, but I just wanted to state that I am going to continue with this story and writing Bethyl in general. It's become too big of a part of me and my life to give up, and I love it far too much. So I hope that you guys keep reading any and all Bethyl, and those of you who write, please keep writing it too. We should keep this beautiful thing alive.
> 
> That said, I hope this chapter brings you some sort of comfort or happiness or whatever else it is you are in need of right now.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy.
> 
> xo

Beth misses reading. It was always a nice escape for her, to peel away from life and curl up somewhere nice and quiet with a good book. Sometimes she’d read outside, beneath a large, old oak on the farm. Sometimes it was on the porch, just at dusk when the sun sunk down beneath the earth. Or even just lying stretched out on her bed, head propped up by her elbows and feet dancing in the air.

She used to read a lot, all the time. But she can’t recall the last book she read, in its entirety. 

The library in Jackson is nice and much bigger than the one she remembers back home. It’s quiet, as libraries are meant to be, but there’s still a number of people hunkered down at tables and wandering down aisles, browsing and studying and reading. Beth wonders for a moment if she looks out of place, because it has been a few days since she’s washed her hair and there’s a small, faded stain on her shirt that she is pretty sure is ketchup. But no one regards her and it’s a relief.

She doesn’t really have a purpose for being here; Merle and Daryl had to do their thing, as was the usual these days. There was part of her that wished those days would end, that suddenly there’d be a change of heart and they wouldn’t feel the need to do the things they did. Sometimes she saw bits of that in Daryl, in the way he’d hesitate before leaving her on her own, or on the occasions where he had met up with her early. Today she almost asked him to join her, to stay with her all day, even just to keep her company. But she held her tongue. He gave her one last long look before the brothers took off in the truck, leaving her on the steps of this very building. They’d meet up with her before sun fall.

It crosses her mind to drive around town, to explore on her own, she has her own car after all. But wasting the gas seems silly and she can use a day of ease.

Beth passes a wheeled rack of books, all different colors and sizes and lengths. A middle-aged woman with short, dark hair offers her a smile before picking up a few books and disappearing down an aisle, Beth assumes to put them away. She picks a hardcover up at random, flipping it open and the spine makes a small crackling noise, like it’s hardly been read. Her fingers skim along the smooth pages as she flicks through it. The paper is riddled with many words that she doesn’t recognize, different ones that she assumes are names of people or places. Huamdonggil? She silently tries to pronounce it as she reads it over and over, before turning the page again. A line at the very bottom catches her eye and she says this one aloud, to herself. 

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.”

“Have you read that one?”

The voice startles her and she snaps the book shut quickly, looking up at the same woman from just a minute before, all shining eyes and a gentle smile.

“Um, no. I haven’t heard of it.”

“It’s a favorite of mine. Full of adventure, love, philosophy, humanity... How people connect and our destinies are intertwined. It’s lovely.” Beth relaxes as the woman waxes poetic, the lights above them reflecting off her name badge, proudly stating EUDORA WELTY LIBRARY beneath her name, Jacqui. “I highly recommend you take it with you.”

“Oh, I’m not from around here,” Beth explains, carefully setting the book back on the rack, her finger running down the spine.

“Well, once you get home, then. You should pick it up.” Jacqui smiles at her once more before taking hold of the cart and wheeling it down a corridor. Beth watches her disappear around the corner and suddenly she feels cool A/C air blowing on her. She shivers.

There’s a table tucked beneath a large window, allowing sunlight to bleed in and spread over the room. It draws her in and Beth takes a seat there, noting that everyone around her is lost in their own world. She thinks on how she is too, lost in her own world, in some way. Maybe just in a different sort of context.

Laying her purse on the table, she opens it and pulls out the postcard from Arkansas. One corner is bent slightly from being tucked away and she does her best to flatten it out.

She meant to send it out sooner, she really did. But the words never came to her. Even now, she wasn’t sure what to say, what to tell her family. Nothing she can come up with could ever convey how she feels, why she left.

But still, she picks up her pen and chews on the cap, her fingers drumming on the wooden surface to a familiar, steady beat. Her eyes flutter shut and she lets her brain turn off for a second, not thinking about explanations or excuses. She does her best to remember her mother’s smile and her soothing voice; she used to worry that if she didn’t recall on it at least once in a while, she’d forget it, like her mother would fade away and run and bleed from her memory, like ink in the rain.

She contemplates what her father could be up to now. It’s early afternoon, he’s probably working, maybe in the barn. Maggie’s probably helping him. She wonders if they talk about her, how much they think on her. She hopes they mention her more than she does them, because she realizes she doesn’t do it nearly enough. And that guilt hangs heavy on her.

What would it be like to be on the road with Maggie, like Daryl and Merle? Clearly they wouldn’t be up to the same antics as the brothers are, but she knows Maggie would probably drag her into things she would never in a million years do on her own. Try to pick up boys or do something illegal but not awful, or get her completely and utterly wasted. Well, Beth kind of _did_ do things like that, on her own, with nobody’s encouragement or pressure. And what would Maggie’s reaction be to that, when she finds out? Surprise? Pride? Disbelief?

Beth opens her eyes and lets out a long breath, one she hadn’t realize she had been holding. Biting back on her lip, she finally presses her pen to the postcard.

_I’m okay. Thinking of you both._

_Love,  
B_

She scribbles down the address and is about to tuck it away, push it from her mind until she can find a mailbox to drop it in. But the words resonate in her mind and she quickly jots them down below her name.

_Travel far enough, you meet yourself._

\---

Daryl seems surprised when he discovers she knows how to fish. 

They weren’t planning to, it was a spur of the moment thing. They had pulled over to stretch their legs and in a moment of spontaneity, Beth had run down the sloping side of the road, near the river that ran along it. She yanked off her boots and socks, hopping around on one foot so awkwardly that she didn’t want to look up at Daryl to see the face he must have been making. But she didn’t care, she missed the water, so she rolled up her jeans and waded into it without thinking, gasping at the cold prickling her skin and rushing past her legs. The mud at the bottom squished under her feet and sunk between her toes, and she laughed and laughed until Daryl followed her example, stepping into the water too. 

They dried themselves and cleaned off the mud from their feet with one of Daryl’s shirts and nothing was spoken, but they decided to stay there for a while. And that’s when she had brought up fishing.

“I grew up on a farm,” she explains, though he doesn’t question how she knows what to do. The way he regards her is enough to fill her in on his shock though, the glances he steals at her one after another as he chews on the side of his thumbnail.

“Makes sense.” Beth lifts an eyebrow at that.

“Oh really? How’s that?”

“Just don’t seem like a city girl, ‘s all.” She’s tempted to press for more of an explanation because she’s not sure if it’s a compliment or an insult. But maybe it’s neither and anyway, she gets distracted by a few splashes in the river before them. A small gasp escapes her lips as it happens again, catching a few fish seeming to pop up too close to the surface, disturbing the steady flow of water. Daryl grins, a little lopsidedly, and finishes carving the notch out of one of the branches they found, to wrap the line around. Daryl had uncovered the roll of line from his glovebox; he fished regularly, or used to. Before.

She works on tying some knots, securing the hook she fashions out of a paperclip and Daryl’s pocketknife. 

“Here,” he says, suddenly oh so close, right beside her. She tilts her head up at him, a bit startled, as he slips the homemade hook and fishing line from her hands. There’s a light sheet of sweat shimmering off his skin and she wonders how he can handle still wearing leather under the sun like this. “This one works better.” Tying a different knot, he shows it off to her before tying it once more, slower, so she can watch his fingers move. 

“Thank you, Mr. Dixon.” She means it sincerely but says it with a bit of a twang anyway, one corner of her mouth turning up a bit. Daryl gives her a funny look, his cheeks and neck tickled pink, wiping the sweat away with a bandana. 

“Ya see any 5-0s drivin’ by, say somethin’.” Daryl wraps the fishing line around the short branch and secures it with another knot. He hands it off to Beth and turns away.

“Why? Are we doin’ something we shouldn’t be doin’?”

“Ain’t we always?” he counters, not missing a beat. She rolls her eyes but laughs nonetheless, and he grins back at her before wandering down the bank, towards some tall grass.

“We don’t have bait.”

“Wha’dya think I’m doin’? Hold your horses.” Beth mimics him under her breath and he doesn’t hear, which she’s pretty thankful for. But she does giggle again, to herself.

She’s antsy and starving, they haven’t eaten anything besides a small bag of chips between the three of them since the night before. She almost can’t believe the grumbling of her stomach hasn’t scared all the fish in the damn Yazoo River away.

Impatient, she grabs a hold of the line and carefully tosses it out into the water. It doesn’t go out as far as she would’ve liked, but it’s better than sitting there and twiddling her thumbs, waiting for Daryl and whatever he is planning on doing.

It’s a breezy day and the sun is warm on her skin, enough that she thinks maybe her freckles will become more pronounced. It’s quiet out here, just the sounds of the river and the buzz of insects; Beth starts humming softly and her eyelids droop a bit out of sheer contentment. 

“You ain’t gonna catch anything with a naked hook, ‘specially with your singin’ and such.” Daryl’s voice suddenly cuts through the ambience and she peeks over at him, wading back out of the grass, his hands clasped together like he’s cradling a pearl. She silences herself. “Reel it in.”

Beth does as he says and holds out the dripping hook to him. Carefully, he peels his hands open and picks up the cricket in his palm with two fingers. Yeah, she grew up on a farm so she’s used to this sort of thing, but she still diverts her gaze to the ground as he baits her up. Once he lets go, she again tosses the line out, further this time, and stretches her legs out in front of herself once she sits down.

Daryl takes a seat beside her, their shoulders mere inches apart. Beth openly turns to look at him and his attention seems focused on the water rushing in front of them. She thought maybe he’d make another line for himself, but he seems content to relax.

It’s so weird to think about, how she got to be at this point; how this man that she met on a whim, in a chance meeting, how he would become her travel companion. And his brother too, but her mind always trickled back to Daryl. They were so different, two opposite sides of a coin, and yet she couldn’t help but feel at ease around him, like she has known him forever. And there’s this unexplainable desire, sometimes it feels like a need, to touch him, even if it’s just a brush of their arms or a swat of the hand. Even now, she has the undeniably urge to connect with him somehow, so she rolls her foot outward and touches their shoes. He reciprocates, subconsciously or not, she doesn’t know, and knocks at her boot with his toe.

“Ya didn’t have to really stop.”

“Hm?”

“Singin’. Or hummin’. Whatever,” Daryl shrugs, flipping open his pocketknife again and picking at his fingernails with it. She watches him for a moment, waiting for him to slip and slice his skin open, but he’s careful and meticulous. For a second, she tries to think of a song that he might like but she pushes that worry aside and sings the first thing that comes to mind.

“I can’t get a drink in Harlan County. I can’t get a drink and I don’t know why, why I ever came to Harlan County. Harlan County’s damn near dry.” 

Daryl lays flat on his back beside her, an arm curling around the back of his head; Beth pulls her knees up a bit and rests the spool of line on them, holding onto it with one hand. Her voice is soft and she didn’t really realize how much she has missed singing until now. She hasn’t done a whole lot of it since leaving home and before that, she sang every single day. Sometimes all day, it seemed.

“I saw a bear up on Black Mountain, carryin’ a six pack in his claw. I shot that bear and I took his six pack and yes, I guess I broke the law.” 

Beth’s hand jerks and it takes her a moment to realize that something is caught on the end of her line and oh man, she really hopes it’s something they can eat because if she doesn’t get some food soon, she’s gonna grow cranky.

“Daryl!” she calls out, turning the branch in her hand over and over, trying to reel it in quickly but carefully. Sitting up suddenly, he slips his hands around the line and it amazes her how such rough, calloused hands can be gentle enough to not tug hard enough to scare anything away.

“Shit, Greene!” A giant grin stretches out across her face as they pull out a fairly large fish, flopping at the end of the line. Daryl pulls it in and unhooks it and Beth flinches as she feels beads of cool water hit her face. 

“I’ve never caught one that big before,” she admits to him, moving to her knees and watching as he holds it out in his hands like he’s inspecting it. “We can eat it, right?”

“Hell yeah, we can. Gonna eat good tonight.” The grin on her face grows even more and he smiles big back at her, a sight that causes her stomach to do a little flip. “Must’ve been your singin’ that drew’m in,” he tells her. She elbows him for the joke but the words still warmly light up her insides.

Beth impresses him again, this time with her fire-building skills. They set up a small camp away from the tall grass, where the ground is flat and level and pretty bare. She uses the blade of his knife to help break up the ground and dig a small hole and she’s already got some tinder, small thin twigs and a few wads of paper litter she stumbled upon. The way he watches her, not so much like he’s surprised like he was earlier, but in a genuine sort of awe; she’d almost label it as admiring but that thought makes her heart flutter in a strange way.

Daryl takes care of the fish, scaling it and gutting it, and she tends to the fire, adding kindling as it grows. It’s a nice set-up, she thinks, and if she has to be out in the wilderness with anyone, she would want it to be Daryl. He seems at home like this.

“When are we meetin’ back up with Merle?” she questions, just out of curiosity. He took off on Daryl’s (well, _his_ bike, according to Daryl) motorcycle early that morning. It’s nice having the day alone with Daryl but Beth knows better than to assume their time together, just the two of them, will last.

“Dunno. Said he’d call me, when he was finished. Maybe later tonight.”

They eat in mostly amicable silence, Daryl only speaking up to offer her more fish and Beth pointing out a constellation, Orion. They sit side by side and Beth doesn’t think twice when she reaches over and takes hold of his hand. Daryl glances at her briefly but he weaves his fingers through hers and she hides her smile in her knees, pulled up to her chin.

The fire dies down, just hot glowing embers and Beth’s cold. She shivers and curls her arm into Daryl’s to try and suck up any heat from him she can. He must notice because he stands and tugs her up with him, letting go of her grasp to stomp out the last burning pieces. Puffs of orange ashes float up and flutter back to the ground, reminding Beth of a smoking stranger, a Texas motel, and a shared bottle of whiskey. It seems like a lifetime ago.

Daryl dumps some water from the river on the small fire pit and all Beth can see is his silhouette, thanks to the moon. It’s dark out here, no light pollution, and they haven’t even seen a car in a couple of hours. She reaches out for him and is met with his own extended arms. His hand slides up her forearm and curls around her elbow before he leads her up the bank, back to the road where the truck is parked off to the side.

“We’ll head back the way we came, try to find a place to stay for the night.”

“We can stay here,” she suggests, not even really thinking about it before the words fly out of her mouth. The moon hits his cheekbone and the roundness of his nose as he looks at her. “We can sleep in the truck bed.” It seems like a silly idea, something she may have seen in a movie or read in a cheesy novel, but it makes sense. She’s tuckered and she has to imagine he is as well; plus, it doesn’t cost them anything. Daryl seems to mull the proposal over because she can hear his feet kicking at the gravel beneath them.

“You’re cold.” Beth shrugs and reaches over the side of the truck for her bag, feeling around until she grabs her jacket and slips it on. A sigh escapes Daryl’s mouth and he mumbles something that she takes as an agreement before he climbs up and over into the truck. He holds out his hand and pulls her up, fairly easily.

It’s certainly not the most comfortable place she’s slept, but the fresh air is so nice and she swears the stars speckled above them are twinkling. She props up their bags as makeshift pillows and Daryl’s moving about but she can’t really tell what he’s up to until she lays back against her bag.

He stretches out beside her and tosses something slightly heavy over her torso, a wave of cigarette stench hitting her nostrils. It’s the jacket he was wearing and the inside of it is still toasty from his body. With a sleepy smile, she curls into it, rolling onto her side, facing him. The night sky seems to reflect off the bare arms of his skin and she doesn’t have to think twice before scooting in closer to him and draping the jacket over both of them. His head moves towards her a bit as she tilts her own down and rests her temple against his shoulder. His breaths come out in steady puffs and he’s just so warm and comfortable, she wants to twist into him, around him completely. But she restrains herself.

“Is this okay?” she whispers, eyes flickering up to his face even if she can’t see it all that well.

“No.” Her heart stops and she goes very still. “’re crushin’ my arm,” he mutters, his arm shifting between them until he’s able to pull it out. Beth still stays quiet and doesn’t move, not until she feels his arm curl around her, his hand settling on the middle of her back. “Now, this is okay.”

Beth smiles and presses her nose into his shirt ever so lightly. It’s a peaceful night, cool but serene, and a part of her imagines that they are back in Georgia, Daryl’s truck parked out in the back of her family’s farm, gazing up at Senoia stars. She thinks on how nice it would be, to show Daryl her home, to show him where she learned to fish, introduce him to Nelly and the other horses. But home seems a lifetime away right now too, and that’s alright, because in this moment, she’s as at peace as she can remember being since she hit the road.

There’s an unexplainable urge to thank him but she’s pretty sure he’s already slipping into his sleep, his chest rising and falling steadily. So she just mouths the words into his shirt before letting her own eyes fall shut.


	7. Part 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, Happy New Year! Secondly, I'm so sorry for the long wait on this chapter. The holidays were crazy but now that they are done with, I should be back to my regular updating schedule. (I also wrote and posted two one-shots between this chapter and the previous one, so if you're looking for something else to read... :) )
> 
> This is my longest chapter yet so I hope it slightly makes up for the wait.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it! And reviews are always greatly appreciated!

It’s nearly sunset and there’s still no word from Merle. Beth’s worried, not even knowing exactly what he had taken off for, but she assumes it had to deal with his “business”. And in that line of work, bad things happen to people all the time, right? That’s what she always assumed. Merle is tough and he can hold his own, she never had a doubt about that. But sometimes, things happen. She just hopes that they didn’t happen to him.

Daryl’s reaction is so completely different from hers. He doesn’t seem concerned in the way that she is, it’s not fear that overtakes him. If Beth had to categorize it as anything, she’d say it was anger. Now, Daryl’s never been one to talk about his feelings all that much, at least not really to her, but she picks up on it. He’s grown quieter as the day went on, he snaps at her for no reason, for little things. He smokes more cigarettes in a half-day than she even thought possible. He’s upset, she knows that. And while she never really brought it up all day, she finally hits her breaking point when he growls at her for taking too long in a fast food joint restroom.

“Will you just call him already?” Beth bites back at him, ignoring the looks they get from a family of four when she raises her voice. Daryl looks momentarily stunned by her outburst but his face soon turns sour.

“’Scuse me?”

“Call him, call Merle. Ask where he’s at and make sure he’s okay, so you can stop acting like a two year old.” Daryl’s face reddens and he leans in close enough so that she can feel the heavy, quick exhales from his nostrils. But Beth holds her ground, she doesn’t step back or cower. Daryl doesn’t scare her. And she is _done_ with him today.

“That what you think, you think I’m scared he’s dead?” His voice is lowered and it’s not because of the mom and dad escorting their children to another table on the opposite side of the restaurant.

“Well, what else would it be?” she counters. Daryl snorts and turns away from her, heading for the door.

“You know nothin’. I ain’t afraid of nothin’.” He pushes it open with too much force and Beth stomps out there after him. This conversation isn’t over, not until he realizes he’s being a complete dick to her and she doesn’t deserve it. 

“Oh, we back to this now? You gonna get all defensive and shove me away? Make us take ten giant steps backwards?”

“Back to this? Girl, I've always been this! I always will be. I didn't magically change, least of all 'cause of you! There ain’t no _us_.”

His words hit her hard, like a Mack Truck flying down the highway, so punchy that she stops in her tracks and hesitates with another step. He seems to realize what he’s said too because he looks over his shoulder and slows down his own strides in the middle of the parking lot. 

“He’s your brother. Of course you care, of course you’re worried.”

“What the hell d’ya know? Merle always does this! He always disappears, ever since I was a kid. He leaves me hangin’ and he runs off. And then in a few weeks or months or a year, he’ll pop up again, like nothin’ happened.” Beth listens, moving her lips to try and say something in reply but she can’t. She doesn’t have any words of comfort or explanation in the moment. “Always pops back up when he needs somethin’ or when whoever he’s usin’ gets sick of bein’ used. That’s Merle.”

“He’ll come back...” Her voice rises towards the end, almost a question. And he snorts at her.

“Don’t change the fact that he leaves. Not that you’d get it, you’re the one who left your family to go roadtrippin’ and have a party.” Beth stills at his words, the pumping of her blood seeming to slow. “Gettin’ tanked at seedy motels with strange men. Trailin’ after ‘em like a lost puppy. _Kissin’_ ‘em.” All of a sudden, the blood rushes to her face and her hands clench at her sides. She advances towards him and her unforeseen jolt of confidence seems to catch him off guard, because his back straightens as she nears.

“Don’t you take out your anger at Merle on me! You don’t get to do that. That isn’t fair!” 

Daryl scoffs and waves her off; she thinks maybe he wasn’t expecting that, that maybe he thought she’d back down and take his heat. But no, she wasn’t about to play that game. She wasn’t gonna let him demoralize her or diminish... whatever it is they have together. An uneasy silence hangs over the parking lot.

While she won’t accept his displaced rage, his words to resonate in her head. She thinks of herself, running away, leaving her family. And what did she expect whenever she decided to go back home? That things would just pick up how they were, that everything would be okay with her father, with her sister? No, it’d be completely naive to think so. And if Daryl’s reaction is any indication...

He’s pacing now, hands on his hips and head tilted down. He kicks a pebble across the asphalt before moving back towards his truck. 

“Okay. So he’s gone. What do you do now? What do you do when he’s not around?” It seems like a dumb question, but Daryl is calmer at least. He’s not as aggravated anymore, he looks defeated, and Beth wants to embrace him so badly. She takes a few steps towards him, waiting for his feet to slow or still.

“I’unno.” Finally he stops and she cautiously slides her arms around his torso from behind, hugging him loosely at first. Once he relaxes into her touch, she tightens her hold and he lets out a long shaky breath. “I just always waited around for him to show up again. To get outta jail, come off his bender.”

Beth thinks of Merle, of his charming grin and the way he had slung his arm around her and treated her like family. How she fell for it, that some part of her thought the three of them would be on the road together for a while and have adventures or some other callow, childish notion. All she feels towards Merle right now is disappointment and maybe a slight taste of bitterness. Perhaps because she wonders if she is like him.

“He’s got the bike,” she whispers against the leather of his vest, the fact randomly occurring to her. She had grown quite fond of it. And to her surprise, Daryl’s body rumbles with a small bout of laughter, like thunder in his chest that vibrates into her bones.

“He always takes the damn bike.”

\---

They are somewhere outside of Montgomery, smaller towns that pop up and disappear before you can blink. It’s nice, Beth thinks, it’s quiet. There’s peace and the stillness of fall, but there’s life and people. There’s still a touch of the outside world that sometimes she thinks she may forget altogether if her and Daryl drove off the map far enough. And that might be okay, at least she likes to imagine. He’s good company, when he’s not having a fit or snipping at her _caring_ or even for something outside of her control. Beth laughs to herself and he throws her a curious look from the inside of the truck’s back window.

They’re pulled over, Daryl claiming something’s off with his steering, so he’s fiddling around with the thing. And for there being a possible problem with his only available mode of transportation, he’s pretty composed. Maybe it was because of his Merle breakdown over a week ago.

She’s sitting in the truck bed, going through both of their bags and sorting clean clothes from the dirty ones. So domestic, yet weirdly out of place, she muses. They’re basically living out of their cars and she busies herself with mundane chores. It became a regular routine and she oddly enough found she had favorites of his clothing. She always made sure his collared cut-off shirt was washed as soon as possible; his arms were something else in it. 

There’s a hand-painted sign propped up alongside the road, and another one down a ways, if she squints. Neatly printed bright red letters, just slightly crooked towards the end. FINAL MOVIE IN THE PARK: TONIGHT, OCTOBER 24TH.

Was it that late already? 

“I missed Maggie’s birthday,” she thinks aloud, sitting up a bit straighter as she moves to her knees. Every hair on her body stands up on end and her heart thumps in her ears.

“’Hmm?” Daryl hums, poking his head outside, eyes squinted in the bright sun.

“Maggie’s birthday, I missed it.” She recalls every year in her mind, one by one, as far back as her memory allows. “We’ve never missed each other’s birthdays. She always came home from school or I visited her if she was away... I never miss her birthday.” She had thought about it before, back in Jackson or Little Rock, some damn town where she was roaming around like some useless vagabond. But it slipped her mind, she missed it.

“Just another day.” Daryl sounds so blasé about it, like it’s no big deal. He doesn’t even bother to hold his eyes on her and all she can do for a second is stare at him, confused, her lips parted.

“It’s not just another day. We never miss each other’s birthdays, Daryl.” He heaves a heavy sigh and she’s just waiting for him to come back at her with something that stings, but he doesn’t. He nods his head and grips the top of the door frame, flexing all his fingers, like he’s unsure of himself. But he looks calm and almost empathetic.

“Write her another letter, then.” They never talked about the postcard, but that wasn’t anything new. She never told him what she wrote, she never even told him thank you for it. They never seemed to talk about anything at all after the fact, with the exception of Merle leaving. And while that had been therapeutic in some sense (he truly seemed less uptight), nothing else had been touched on yet.

There’s a part of her brain that tells her to argue with him but what’s the point? She doesn’t want to bicker. She just wants the swirling guilt in her stomach to go away. Maybe a letter will help with that. “Yeah, maybe I should.”

“Or give her a call.” That’s the end of the discussion and suddenly she needs to stretch her legs. The piles of sorted clothes go forgotten for the moment and she hops out onto the ground and wanders in the field alongside the road, thinking of homemade cards and trick candles and meticulously wrapped presents.

\---

Daryl says he needs to take the truck to a shop, something about the steering column being off and she doesn’t argue. He tells her she can go off if she wants and they can meet up later, once he’s done getting in checked out. It’s tempting, to go exploring; there’s some Civil War landmarks around and the scape sure is pretty. But she finds herself longing to spend the day with Daryl, at least being there for him; while his blow-up a few days back indicated that he was pretty used to it, she still found herself wanting to keep him company. And not just for his sake. Maggie had been on her mind all day and she didn’t really want to be alone. Too much thinking gets done when she is all by her lonesome.

While he’s talking to one of the local mechanics, some guy with a dice tattoo on his neck and the name Axel embroidered on his jumpsuit, she wanders into the lobby. There’s a few banged up chairs, some well-read magazines scattered on a rickety old table. Music seeps from a small outdated boom box in the corner, a song about moonlight and moss in trees, something she vaguely recognizes, and the melody sticks with her. And there’s a payphone too, tucked away in the corner, behind a small divider sticking out from the wall. Her stomach lurches at the sight.

She should call home, she knows she should. It’s nearly noon so someone will be inside if she calls the house. And if nothing has changed with Maggie, she’ll have her cell phone tucked in her back pocket, mainly for purposes of keeping in touch Glenn throughout the day. Somehow the thought of talking on the phone terrifies her ten times more than writing a silly little postcard; maybe because she doesn’t feel like she has a valid excuse for leaving home in the middle of the night, with hardly any kind of goodbye.

She inches over to the phone and picks it up. Dial tone. There’s some spare change in the bottom of her purse and she feeds in the coins before dialing her sister’s number.

It rings and rings and time seems to slide to a halt. The music fades out to a fuzzy static and her body suddenly seems so heavy, she has to lean against the phone box. And then her sister’s familiar voice is there, on the other end.

“Hello?” 

There’s a part of her that wishes Daryl would waltz into the lobby now, an excuse to hang up and forget all about this. But oh, how good it is to hear Maggie’s voice, even just a few syllables. Tears spring to her eyes and she takes in a deep breath through her nose.

“Hi, Maggie.” There’s a pregnant pause and she’s wondering if she’s about to get screamed at from across state lines.

“Beth? Beth, is that you?” And Beth is all but sobbing now, resting her forehead against the cool metal box.

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday.”

“Where are you? Oh my god. Is everything okay? I’ll come get you, just tell me where you are.” Maggie sounds more frantic than emotional and Beth can her rustling in the background, like she’s digging through a drawer or a closet, trying to find something. Beth wonders if it’s a pen to write things down or a jacket to throw on, like she’s gonna bust out of the house as soon as she’s off the phone. That would be a lot like Maggie.

“I’m sorry I missed it,” she repeats. It’s all she can think about.

“Beth, it’s okay. Tell me where you are. Are you safe?”

“I’m fine, I promise. I... I’ll come home soon. I don’t know when. I just have... stuff to do. And then I’ll come home.” It wasn’t a lie. She always intended on coming home, sometime. Even though the longer she was out, the harder it was to imagine coming home with no problem at all. It stretched out, with every day, filling her with more fear and terror and anxiety. Seeing the amount of animosity Daryl carried for his brother, for leaving and abandoning him with no notice. Was she that bad? She might be.

Maggie sighs heavily and it’s shaky; her voice cracks. “Please, just come home. We miss you and we just want you home. Daddy’s...” she trails off and Beth wipes at her eyes with the side of her hand.

“Are you mad at me?” It sounds so childish, she realizes, especially in the soft nearly broken voice she asks it in. But she needs to know because all she sees is fuming, heated Daryl pacing and throwing his arms around like a broken windmill. 

“What? No, I’m not mad. We’ve been so worried, so worried.” Beth’s breathing begins to even out and when she turns her head, she can see Daryl and the mechanic through the large window, standing in front of the truck. “I will come get you right now. Please.” Now Maggie is the one whispering and what Beth wouldn’t do for a hug from her sister right now.

“I love you. I miss you. Tell daddy...”

“I will.” There’s a part of her that wonders why Maggie isn’t arguing with her more, isn’t pleading with her to stop being stupid and come home right now. There’s no chastising. It’s surprising but there aren’t words for how much she appreciates it. That doesn’t stop her from speculating why her sister is being so accepting though. “Please. Soon, Beth.”

“Yeah. I love you,” she repeats again, Daryl’s form growing bigger and bigger as he approaches the door to the lobby.

“I love you.” And Beth hangs up. Daryl wanders into the lobby, the door slowly pulling shut behind him. He looks a bit peeved; there could be imaginary steam coming from his ears.

“Stuck in this shithole for a few days,” he speaks up, walking towards her though his paces slow as she hurriedly wipes at her eyes. But she knows it’s useless, she knows her eyes are still watering and probably rimmed with redness. “You okay?” His tone is strange, it’s not detached like she’s grown accustomed to. It’s gentler. She forces herself to smile big until it softens into an actual genuine one after gazing at him for a moment, his eyes peering out from his too long bangs and his shoulders pulled back like he’s willing to beat the shit out of whoever or whatever it was that made her upset.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She lets out a long breath and straightens up, pulling on the strap of her bag. “So, we’re stuck here? What are we gonna do to kill the time?”

Daryl shrugs and he looks outside before throwing a cautious look her way, a near smile ghosting his lips. “Can I drive your car?”

\---

She lets him have the keys and can’t bite back her smile when he curses and has to adjust the seat and mirrors completely. Somehow the image of him with his knees nearly to his chin is just too comical. 

“Not that it’s my place, but how are you gonna pay for your truck?” He doesn’t say anything for a long while, just stares straight ahead, and she wonders if he’s choosing to simply ignore her because she could see him doing that. It’s a legitimate question; she can’t imagine it’s cheap and if she can assume anything, it’s that he probably has hardly any more money in his wallet than she has in her own. Finally he glances at her from the corner of his eye and he straightens up in his seat. She remembers then, how could she forget? The drugs.

“Don’t be judgin’ me.” Daryl’s voice is oddly soft; still gruff and a bit muddled together, that will never change. But he does sound a bit... ashamed. And she’s about to tell him that she’s not, she’s not judging him, it’s just concern. It will come off as judgement anyway, though.

“I thought Merle had all the drugs,” she replies, keeping her voice quiet too. It seems to fit the topic at hand.

“Had some stashed in the truck.” 

“I just wish you wouldn’t--”

“I know, you damn near told me a hundred times already,” he spits back, braking so hard at a red light that she grips the armrest between them. “You think I can just settle down somewhere and get a normal job, that ain’t how it works. That’s not how it is with me. Can’t just put on a tie and get a job.” 

“Have you ever even tried?” she retorts, her chin high and her gaze so intense, she could very well burn holes into him with just her look. Daryl grunts and she can’t help but roll her eyes. She’s not judging, she’s really trying not to.

“Anyway, I ain’t sellin’. We’re tradin’.”

“Oh, so bartering is more acceptable than selling.” 

“Girl.” His tone is like a warning and she hates it when he talks to her like that. But she drops it, for now. She’s had a whirlwind of emotions already today and it wasn’t even sunset. Silence fills the car for a few blocks as they drive, heading nowhere as far as she knows, and they pass more of those homemade MOVIE IN THE PARK signs. He probably won’t be up for it, doesn’t seem like his sort of schtick, but for everything that’s happened in the past week or so, she wants a little bit of normalcy.

“They sure are pushin’ this movie thing,” Beth states as they drive past yet another sign, looking over at Daryl expectedly. His face contorts and she knows he’s still a bit peeved at her nose being all up in his illegal business, but he gives into her request anyway.

“Yeah, yeah. Just ‘cause they might got food, and I’m hungry.”

It’s a nice little set-up; the screen was stretched out at the base of a hill that was cluttered with families and groups and some couples, spread out on blankets and lawn chairs. There was in fact food, much to Daryl’s delight; hot dogs and popcorn and even hot cocoa. They’re playing The Wizard of Oz tonight and it may seem silly, but it lifts Beth’s spirits in a way she really needed. She hasn’t seen the movie in some time; it always was one of her favorites when she was little.

“Do you like The Wizard of Oz?” she asks once they are settled down on the grass, off-center from the screen but still with a decent view. Daryl’s shoveling a hot dog into his mouth like he can’t eat it fast enough and she has to smile at how endearing he is in the moment. 

“Yeah, used to watch it every year as a kid, on TV,” he replies between chews, his cheeks full and round. 

“Really?”

“My ma loved it a lot...” He seems to stop mid-thought, swallowing the last of his food and looking down at his lap. Beth senses the shift but she still reaches over and wipes a bit of mustard from the corner of his mouth, caught in the hairs there. Daryl looks over at her suddenly and oh, how she wants to kiss him.

“You mad that I kissed you?” she inquires, her voice so soft he wonders if he can hear her. But something passes over his features and she knows he has; she contemplates if she should specify but he knows just what she’s referencing. Hell, he was the one who threw it back in her face not too long ago.

“Not mad. Never said that.”

“But you didn’t want me to.” It’s not a question and he starts to squirm, little movements like the jittering of one of his crossed knees and tapping of his fingers.

“Didn’t say that neither.” Her eyes bore holes into him and she knows how uncomfortable he is. But the air needed to be cleared sometime, right?

She remembers the night so well, even if she was a bit buzzed. The way she brazenly slid into his lap and pressed her body against his, kissing him with all sorts of pent up lust and confusion and loneliness. She had been bold, showcasing a different kind of brashness than what she did with him now. Because back then, he was almost a figment of her imagination. She didn’t know him, she’d only spent a day with this strange man yet she was so compelled to feel more of him. And now here she was, a month later, having spent nearly every moment with him. Traveling across state lines and picking up pieces here and there about him, until he wasn’t just a figment. Daryl is fleshed out now, he’s real, and while she certainly doesn’t know all the ins and outs to him (he is quite the enigma, she decides), she still knows him. And he still causes that swirl in her stomach, she still catches herself gazing at him for longer than she should. And she finds herself wanting to know all those ins and outs, to learn every bit about him, the good and the bad.

“Then... what?” 

The screen lights up and the crowd of people cheer as the film begins to roll, their voices slowly drowning out and Beth has to commend the world on its timing. She’s still peering at him and finally, he tilts his chin up towards her. 

“What’s a girl like you doin’ hangin’ ‘round me?” The sweeping opening tune of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ almost wipes out his words but his eyes are clearer than she’s ever seen them. So she doesn’t even hesitate when she wraps a hand around his arm and scoots closer, her fingers sliding down his warm skin until they find his hand and link together with his own.

“You like havin’ me around, yeah? You told me that before.” Daryl’s eyes drop for a moment before he looks back up at her and for any surliness he’s shown her in the past, right now he looks so nervous and unsure. “I like havin’ you around too. I like bein’ around you. And roamin’ around with you.” His fingers twitch against the back of her hand. “Why were you so kind to me, back then, when we met?”

Daryl shrugs but he doesn’t let go of her hand as they settle intertwined on the small patch of grass between them. “Was lonely, I guess. Merle took off. And you were there, drunk as a skunk.” Beth lets out a laugh and he cracks a grin at her, one that lights up her insides. 

“I was lonely too.” Her confession seems to stun him, his expression shifting. “But I’m not here with you now because I’m lonely. I guess I’ve learned so much about myself, since we’ve met. And it just hasn’t felt like the right time for me to go home yet. I still... there’s still things I wanna do and I wanna experience. And being out here with you, that’s one of the things I’m not ready to give up just yet.”

A grey-haired woman in front of them turns around just then and shushes them, her eyebrows knitted together. Beth sheepishly mouthes an apology before the woman turns forward and places her hand on the back of the young girl beside her. 

When her attention falls back to Daryl, he’s practically gawking at her and her cheeks heat up under his fixed stare. It’s not boldness that has her leaning into him this time, it’s certainty; sureness that it was in fate’s plan to have her meet him all along, that leaving and being away from home would be a nonstop, difficult adventure, but it had a purpose. So there’s no hesitancy when she presses her mouth to his and he kisses her back like it’s there last moments on Earth. Maybe it is. Maybe it will be. If that’s the case, she’s at peace, because she made that phone call and she has learned something about herself and she has found some sort of... affection. Something more complicated than friendship but deeper than lust; a connection and mutual tenderness. They weren’t dependent on each other but they enhanced one another, they made each other’s loads a little bit lighter.

She pulls back only when she needs a breath and she never really noticed his eyelashes till now, as they flutter and dance. There’s a giggle from in front of them and when Beth turns her head, the young girl is watching them with the widest grin she’s seen in some time. Daryl notices too and clears his throat, head ducking down, but Beth simply accepts the color that flushes her cheeks and laughs with the girl.

There’s little talking between them the rest of the movie; he seems enthralled, like he’s seeing a film for the first time and she can’t help but relish in the nostalgia that washes over her during it. She sings along, murmuring, and he holds her hand throughout the whole thing, like they’re on a real date or something. She feels brighter again and it’s nice. And when the movie ends, they stay put as families funnel out, dads carrying their sleeping children and moms leading their kids through the mass of people, listening to their endless strings of questions.

Daryl looks sleepy and she’s about to offer to pay for a room for them, it’s the least she can do since she really hasn’t held up her end on that expense line. But other words tumble out of her mouth instead. 

“You know I only give you a hard time about that... stuff because I care, right?” It’s a direct question and she expects him to squirm or at least look away. But he manages to glance over at her. She still can’t read his face though.

“Why?” is all he asks, his voice low amidst the chattering voices and happy shrieks of children. He’s plucking out blades of grass and for some reason, his hands are mesmerizing. 

“Why what?

“Why do you care?”

“I just do. I just... care about you.” 

She kisses him again, this time it’s slow and fluid. The whole world stops around them.


End file.
